Smash & Grab: Wladimir Klitschko vs David Haye Preview & Prediction
For the first time in eight long and monotonous years, a heavyweight boxing match looms into view which actually merits worldwide attention. Ukrainian Wladimir Klitschko, the incumbent world heavyweight champion lauded in some quarters as a dominant presence, despite the very strong argument that he isn’t even the best big man in his own family, finally faces a challenge in the shape of the garrulous Briton, David Haye.
Haye, too, will engage in his first real test in more than three years, after having embarked upon a lucrative duck shoot since he made pate out of the Frenchman, Jean Marc Mormeck, in Paris. The pair meet on Saturday evening on Klitschko turf, at the Imtech Arena in Hamburg, Germany, where a capacity crowd can expect to see one, or perhaps both rivals, staving off unconsciousness at dramatic flashpoints throughout their struggle.
Klitschko, 55-3 (49), has been installed as a significant betting favourite, having attracted odds somewhere in the locality of 8/13. A hulking, 6’6 ½ ” gargantuan, he exhibits, perhaps, the blandest fighting style of all the men who have held guardianship over boxing’s one-time greatest prize. Despite having been gifted with imposing physical attributes and supreme power in both hands, Wladimir prefers to jab and nullify his way to victory, fielding as few shots in return as is possible in the process. It’s a style he has virtually perfected, leaving opponents with brass buttons rather than the jackpot they were hoping for, when attempting to breach his defences.
The reasons for such conservatism are threefold and are identifiable by the names of Ross Puritty, Lamon Brewster and Corrie Sanders. Despite the fact that none of the aforementioned triumvirate amounted to a hill of beans in the grand scheme of things, on their finest nights, all three found themselves chasing a flimsy-legged Klitschko all over the ring and eventually, out of the fight.
Puritty, a heavy handed but limited journeyman with a 24-13-1 record, outlasted Klitschko, then unbeaten in 24 fights, in Kiev in 1998, sponging up the favourite’s best punches before halting him after he’d punched himself into a fit of exhaustion in the eleventh round. “Dr. Steelhammer” would avoid further defeat until 2003, when the big punching South African, Corrie Sanders, set about him from the get-go, obliterating him inside five minutes of sustained violence. After succumbing to yet another crushing stoppage, this time to Indiana’s Lamon Brewster the following year, Klitschko’s career appeared to have run its course, with ringside pundit Roy Jones Jr. summing up his lack of resolve as thus: “He’s like a dawg who can’t fight from the bottom up”.
Klitschko has since regrouped and is currently, 13-0 (10), since the Sanders pasting. Question marks remain regarding his whiskers, though, after the limited twosome of Washington’s DaVarryl Williamson and the Nigerian Samuel Peter, managed to floor him in bouts Klitschko would eventually manage to skew his way. In June 2009, Ring Magazine’s ratings panel decreed that a bout between Wlad and the Uzbekistani, Ruslan Chagaev, would determine a new heavyweight champion. Klitschko put on a clinic, shutting Chagaev out in 9 rounds of expert jabbing and has defended his title successfully on two occasions since.
Haye, 24-1 (21), has also proven vulnerable. As a 10-0 pup, he succumbed to the same folly which had put the skids under Klitschko, that of over-exuberance, against the gnarled and knotted warhorse, Carl Thompson. “The Cat”, as Thompson was known, weathered Haye’s kamikaze attempt to knock him senseless before rallying bravely, clawing Haye to defeat in the fifth.
More concerning than this, four fights previous to the Thompson disaster, the Bermondsey bomber almost had his clock cleaned at the hands of a career light heavyweight, the Congolese, Lolenga Mock. Finding Haye with his left hand low, Mock dislodged the Londoner’s head from its usual resting place with a jolting, overhand right, wrecking his equilibrium in the process. Haye took a count before roaring back to halt Mock in the fourth, yet he had come within a hair’s breadth of being knocked out.
Since that scare, and his subsequent defeat at the hand of Thompson, Haye has been seriously buzzed only once, in his cruiserweight championship winning performance over Mormeck. Made to pay for holding his left hand down by his side once again, Mormeck backed him into a corner in the fourth and slugged him with a solid left hook-right hand combination, which instantly short circuited Haye’s faculties. Springing into recovery mode as if he’d been knocked backwards onto a cattle prod, Haye eventually took a count, before marching back into Mormeck and seeing out the round (Haye went on to clatter the man from Guadeloupe in round seven).
Klitschko will adopt his usual tactics; standing tall, holding centre ring and looking to dominate with his telegraph pole of a left jab, while mixing in neat left hooks and the occasional straight right hand. When Haye attacks, he can expect to find himself enveloped in Klitschko’s arms, where the champion will look to exert his weight on the smaller man in an attempt to drain his reserves. Klitschko’s trainer, Emanuel Steward, will have identified his man’s right hand as the coup de grace; a punch Haye has been open to throughout his career, and which he’ll attempt to fend off with a higher than usual outstretched left. That may not be enough to shield him from disaster – one well placed Klitschko right hand could be all he needs to retain his championship.
Haye will box from outside using his speed and movement to search for openings, where he’ll then look to explode upon Klitschko with frenetic salvos. His window of success would appear smaller under these circumstances, hence his underdog status, as Klitschko’s sheer bulk and expert sticking sways control his way and puts rounds in the bank. And while considered opinion figures that Haye must go forward in order to ruffle the champion’s feathers, feinting often and committing to powerful assaults, both he and trainer Adam Booth, ever the contrarians, may decide to box on the counter — only punching when Klitschko commits himself — and beating him to the trigger whenever the champ attempts to do so.
Both men appear fit and confident ahead of this, their defining contest. Klitschko has spoken of teaching his young tormentor a lesson, which almost certainly means he intends to offer Haye the full “jab and grab” experience which has served him so well throughout recent years. Haye, meanwhile, gives the impression of being a man possessed, almost infatuated with the champion he appears hell-bent on dethroning.
This fight would appear to hinge on what Haye does, or doesn’t do correctly. His unpredictability, susceptibility and freakish power (rarely has an opponent escaped having their senses scrambled when they’ve faced him across a ring) create a buzz which few fighters currently possess. Steward, for one, has barely been able to contain his delight at Haye’s approach in the build-up, eyeing him jealously as if he were a younger colleague’s pretty wife at the annual work’s bash. Perhaps only the Puerto Rican featherweight, Juan Manuel Lopez, another vulnerable power hitter, can rival Haye for excitement. And while we already have a pretty good idea about what Klitschko is liable to do when they’re finally left alone together, Haye is capable of almost anything (including spectacular failure) once he is let loose against the fighter he has mooned over for what seems like forever.
In a battle of punchers, the victor is usually the man with the superior beard. As both men would appear equally creaky in this department, the bout could hinge instead on which fighter is more willing to take a chance, willing to thrust themselves out of their normal comfort zone and into the winner’s paddock.
In a fight which appears eminently winnable for the champion should he be inclined to commit himself to his task from the off, thundering into the challenger with spirited combinations of punches, Haye’s confidence can grow with each electrifying raid he makes successfully. Haye will be desperate to shake the champion up early in order to keep Klitschko guessing for the remainder of the contest, paving the way for theatrical and high-speed flourishes which can catch the judges’ eyes and in fact, turn their heads sufficiently to earn an unlikely decision victory over an opponent, who at 35, is entering the twilight years of what has been a highly decorated yet largely frustrating career.
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