by James Slater – David Haye and his manager/trainer Adam Booth have not given up on the idea of “The Hayemaker’s” next fight being against Klitschko – it’s just that now the plan just might be for Haye to fight Wladimir’s older brother, Vitali, instead. Wladimir, who chose quite rightly not to wait until July to fight a Haye whose back would have been better (now, according to some reports, it will be the 25th when Haye is back to full fitness, and not the originally promised date of July 11th) will be all tied up for the rest of this year and into the next.
First it will be Ruslan Chagaev, then Wladimir’s IBF and WBO mandatory challengers, Alexander Povetkin and the winner of the Eddie Chambers-Alexander Dimitrenko clash will have to be accommodated. So, with Waldimir’s schedule very much a full one, Haye is now looking at a September fight with WBC champ Vitali. “Dr. Iron Fist’s” own mandatory challenger, former champ Oleg Maskaev, may have something to say about it, but it is possible that Haye could wind up facing the rock-chinned older brother after all..
Speaking to The Daily Star Sunday, Booth said he has indeed brought up the possibility of a Vitali-Haye fight for this year.
“We’ve spoken about Vitali in September,” Booth said. “Fighting Vitali is just something that was thrown up with a few other things, but we’ve not directly talked to them about it. It was passed on to me by someone else. It has always been about the Klitschkos and the interest of David against a Klitschko is now greater than ever.”
At this stage, then, the Plan-B fight is nothing much more than a pretty vague notion, but it seems as though Haye does not want to go back to the back of the line and work his way up towards being a mandatory challenger for Wladimir.
Strangely, Booth went as far as suggesting that Wladimir may be being somewhat impatient for not granting Haye the three week postponement the challenger asked for.
“We were only asking for a three week delay and Wladimir is either impatient or it’s an indication of his desire about really wanting to fight David,” Booth said.
This is a bit rich, to say the least! To even suggest that Wladimir is at all hesitant to face Haye is an insult in my opinion. Who was it that pulled out of the June 20th fight in the first place!?
In any case, Haye will have to wait and see what WBC king Vitali wants to do next, and whether or not he has to go ahead and defend against Maskaev. Credit, however, must be given to Haye for at least wanting to take on the fighter generally recognised as the more formidable of the two brothers from Ukraine.
There is, though, even more news surrounding the two Klitschko brothers – and it’s shocking stuff. According to a news piece that has appeared in today’s Sunday Independent, Wladimir has spoken about actually fighting his brother in a unification bout! Reportedly, if their mother gives them her blessing to do so, the two will look seriously at fighting one another.
“We are going to talk to our mother again because we know how much interest such a fight would create,” Wladimir is quoted as saying. “It would mean one of us would be the supreme heavyweight champion. Of course she would not be happy and if we did fight I would be very worried about the health of my brother because it would be very bloody and very bad.
“We are very competitive and it would be for real. There would be no fix.”
Could this fight ever really take place? Such a bout has been spoken about for months if not years, with both brothers seemingly becoming tired of answering whoever brought up the idea of the fight, and telling them it won’t happen. Have the two giants now changed their minds?
If Klitschko Vs. Klitschko were to happen, the attention the bout would get would be astronomical!