David Haye assures doubters he will fightthe Klitschkos
WBA heavyweight champion David Haye insists he will fight the Klitschko brothers, who hold all the relevant heavyweight titles save for Haye’s own.
Comments came at the heels of ones made by Vitali Klitschko recently, who challenged the WBA champ and said that he will give him six months to sign on for a unifying title bout.
Klitschko, the WBC titlist, made a punching bag out of Shannon “The Cannon” Briggs last Saturday, nailing him with stiff shots for 12 rounds and ultimately sending him to the hospital. Briggs suffered bone fractures under his left and right eye, a broken
nose, and a torn left bicep that will take months to heal.
Immediately after the fight, Klitschko called out Haye and offered him a 50-50 split for a title fight. He said: “The sports community, the fans, they have put a lot of pressure on Haye. He has no way out. He must either announce that he does not want to
box against a Klitschko, thus admitting the words 'yes, I am afraid of the Klitschko brothers’ — which, in my opinion, is worse than a defeat from going into the ring."
In response Haye tried to squeeze out of criticisms that he had been avoiding the best of his division, saying: "the big fights always, always happen. Myself and the Klitschkos, it will happen. There's loads of banter back and forth; ‘he's ducking me,
I'm ducking him,’ but we will fight and they're getting knocked out, and once I do that, all the hype beforehand becomes irrelevant.”
Fans sought answers from Haye after he turned down an offer from Wladimir Klitschko earlier this year only to sign for a fight against European champ Audley Harrison. In a parallel development, British youngster Dereck Chisora decided to sign for a fight
with Klitschko for December 11. The move made Chisora a crowd favourite and cast Haye in a poor light.
Apparently trying to justify his actions, Haye opined: "There's a lot more behind the scenes the fans aren't aware of. Boxers call each other out but when it comes to signing the contract and the money situation, the television rights, the venues, no one
hears about that [...] They just hear one fighter say they want to fight another fighter and assume that means the other person's going to turn up on the day. There's so much more to it than meets the eye.”
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