By Michael Collins: Former WBA heavyweight champion David Haye (25-2, 23 Ko’s) is no longer coming across as the intimidating, taunting fighter he once was in trying to land a fight against WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko (43-2, 40 KO’s) for the summer.
Instead of coning at Vitali at the angle that he wants to beat him and take his World Boxing Council title, Haye is trying to get the fight with Vitali by luring him with the ‘let’s see if you can do what couldn’t do, which is knock me out.’ It’s a pretty lame way of getting a fight and doesn’t exactly make you want to rush out and watch the Haye-Klitschko fight if it ever gets made.
Haye told thesun.co.uk “Vitali wants to do what Wladimir couldn’t – and that’s put me on the canvas. It now depends on just how much he wants to do exactly that.”
That strikes me as a really poor way to get a fight. What happened to the old Haye that would rip the Klitschkos apart with insults, describing how he was going to put Wladimir in the hospital? I’d much rather see that than what’s become of Haye. I don’t think he believes he can win and will just go through the motions like he did last time in his one-sided loss to Wladimir in July 2011.
If Haye isn’t going to try and fight a couple of tune-ups to make people believes he’s back from the Wladimir loss, he could at least sound like he believes he’s got a shot to win. What boxing fans don’t want is to see Haye running around the ring for 12 rounds like he did in the Wladimir and Nikolay Valuev fights. Unfortunately that’s probably what we’ll end up seeing in a poor effort from Haye.