By P.H. Burbridge – What can you say? Every morning you wake up to the news that the David Haye – Wladimir Klitschko fight is either on or off. This morning it’s off again. At least we know from Dan Goosen that Chris Arreola will NOT be Wladimir’s back up plan which I interpret as a good thing. I think the Arreola camp would be short changing themselves by altering their plans to fight Jameel McCline.. We all pretty much agree that Chris needs better conditioning and more seasoning so penciling him in against arguably the best heavyweight in the world for a May or June match may not be in his best long term interest. Sure he would make more money than he ever has but the money train just might run off the tracks after that if he’s not successful. I’m absolutely positive that Dan Goosen and most certainly Al Haymon have the experience at the negotiation table to get Chris the best deal possible and waiting for Arreola to ascend to mandatory challenger status is probably the best way to go. The Klitschko’s will be forced to get that deal done in a sense. I think we’ll see far less start and stops than we have with the David Haye debacle. I’m just curious as to what really stopped that deal.
Was it Haye demanding too much or was it the Klitschko’s trying to lock down that ridiculous rematch clause I wrote about in my last article. If you recall the clause would essentially force Haye to plan his next two years around the Klitschko brothers. I’m curious about that because there were plenty of reports that Haye was willing to fight Wlad anywhere on the planet once the Stamford Bridge site was removed from the equation. Now, if the guy was willing to fight him anywhere as well as allow K2 Promotions to take over the fight then what was the problem? The fight most certainly was going to take place in Europe and Haye is well known there so in my mind he would have deserved a decent payday just as Arreola would in the U.S. so how low did Wladimir want him to go? I know you don’t like the man but at this point in time there is NO bigger fight in the division. This is all quite puzzling.
It will be interesting to finally hear what actually brought these discussions to a halt.
So, what happens if Haye doesn’t get this fight? Let’s be honest the guy can fight and he’s a whole hell of a lot of fun to listen to so this won’t be the end of the world. The man’s 28 years old and he’s not going any place. This is no doubt a speed bump in his career but he can continue to build his name by fighting in Las Vegas and on American television. I’m sure HBO would be more than happy to feature a fighter with his magnitude. Look at what HBO did with Prince Hamed back in the day. My sense is that David Haye and Adam Booth have just gotten a whole education on the dirty business of the fight game. Hopefully, they take this experience in stride and put things into perspective. If David Haye keeps winning he will become a massive star with or without a belt. The only thing he lacks is exposure here in the U.S. Once he get’s that then he can come back to the table with either Klitschko and get a proper deal.
If I was advising Haye and it was clear that a fight with Wladimir was out of the question then I would say find a ranked opponent and set up camp in Vegas! Make the rounds and tell everyone who’ll listen why Wladimir didn’t want to fight you.
After all it’s WK who won’t fight. You made yourself available and obviously on some level he and his people decided there was too great a risk for the money to take you on.
If he was ABSOLUTELY confident that he could beat you then he would have come in knocked you out and then focused his attention on Arreola or Povetkin. The terms of the deal would not have made that big of a difference.
For Wladimir and Vitali to decide which one would fight David Haye on a coin flip to all of sudden stop answering their phone is a statement all of its own!
(Please feel free to contact P.H. Burbridge via email at PHBboxing@yahoo.com with any comments or feedback.)