David Haye to fight in December

Boxingnews24.com

By William Mackay: Former WBA heavyweight champion David Haye (29-3, 26 KOs) will be trying to bounce back from a defeat to Tony Bellew when he returns to the ring in December against an opponent still to determined.

Haye’s surgically repaired Achilles is healed, and he’s now a new man. Haye is ready to make things happen in the ring once again. His loss to Bellew was one that was injury related. You can’t give Haye too much blame for the defeat. It’s a fight that ended for intents and purposes in the 6th after Haye suffered the injury to his Achilles. He was able to make it to the 11th, but it was sheer will power alone that he was able to do this.

Haye, 36, won’t be fighting a rematch with Bellew in December, and it remains to be seen if the two fighters will face each other in a rematch. Bellew is interested in fighting WBO heavyweight champion Joseph Parker. Bellew also has the option to face pound for pound King Andre Ward. Haye will be turning 37 in October. He needs to get his career in order and start fighting on a more frequent basis. Before Haye’s defeat to Bellew, he hadn’t fought in 10 months. That’s a long time to be out of the ring when you’re getting up there in age like Haye.

A rematch with Bellew would be the best bet for Haye if the fight can get made. It’s a tough one to make though. Haye might have to agree to a deal that’s not good for him if he accepts the fight now. It might be better for Haye to get some wins under his belt before going back to the negotiating table for a rematch with Bellew. It’s always better to negotiate from a position of strength rather than of weakness. Bellew would be in the position of strength due to his knockout win over Haye.

Haye injured in his right Achilles tendon in his loss to Bellew on March 4. Haye has had surgery to fix the problem, and he’s been rehabbing slowly to get back in fighting condition. Haye was stopped by the 34-year-old Bellew in the 11th round after he slipped and fell out of the ring. Haye’s trainer stopped the fight while he was trying to climb back into the ring. It looked like Haye was fine. He had slipped and fell out of the ring. He’d been injured ever since the 6th, and his mobility was severely hampered by the injury. The injury made it possible for Bellew to win a fight that he was losing. If not for the injury, Haye would have had an excellent chance of winning.

Haye switched out trainer Shane McGuigan in favor of Ismael Salas, and he’s hoping he can take his career to the next level to get him back in position to win a world title at heavyweight.

“I will be back in the ring in December, who that will be against, I don’t know,” Haye said to skysports.com.

Haye needs to look for one of the contenders and see if he can get a fight against one of them. If Haye can beat a contender or two, he’ll get ranked and that will start the ball rolling for a world title shot. Haye is too dangerous for his own good. He needs to pick up a high ranking so that he can force a title shot against one of the champions. He was in the position to fight WBO champion Joseph Parker, but he blew it by fighting Bellew instead of going for the title.

In hindsight, that was probably a mistake by Haye. If he’d fought Parker, he could have won the WBO title and then used the belt as bait to get a unification fight against IBF/WBA champion Anthony Joshua or WBC champion Deontay Wilder. Haye went for what appeared to be an easy payday against Bellew instead. That decision blew up in Haye’s face when he suffered an Achilles injury during the fight and ended up getting stopped in the 11th.

Haye has a new TV deal, and he’s got the power and the talent to make big things happen with his career. Unlike Bellew, Haye has tools to beat the best in the heavyweight division. He doesn’t need to use finesse to beat them. He can win with his punching power and hand speed.

It’s got to have been a tough pill for Haye to swallow in losing to Bellew in their grudge match last March. After all the back and forth trash talking that was done between the two fighters, Haye didn’t want to lose the way he did on an injury and him slipping out of the ring. Haye had to swallow some humble pie in defeat. The win for Bellew made his boxing career, even though the victory was somewhat tainted due to the injury of Haye. Bellew was happy to get the win anyway he could get it.

Haye needs a solid victory before he can start thinking about a second fight against Bellew. Things might be different in the careers of both fighters by the time they meet up again. If Bellew faces Andre Ward or Joseph Parker, he’ll very likely lose to them. In the meantime, Haye will likely win his next fight, so the two of them will meet up under much different circumstances in the future. Bellew might gain credibility in losing to Ward or Parker if he’s competitive with them at least. We’ve seen that type of thing time and again with different fighters, especially when they’ve being given very little chance of winning.

It’s not probable that Haye will take a risky heavyweight that could give him problems potentially like Dillian Whyte, Dominic Breazeale, Eric Molina, Dereck Chisora, Andy Ruiz or Jarrell Miller. Even if Haye could get one of those fighters to face hi, it would be very dangerous for him to fight them. Haye needs someone ranked lower in the division like Otto Wallin, Charles Martin or Johann Duhaupas. Those are fighters that Haye should be able to beat as long as he doesn’t suffer another injury.

Haye has missed out on a lot of time in his career since 2011. Haye has been a part time fighter ever since his big payday fight against Wladimir Klitschko in 2011. Haye lost to Wladimir by a 12 round unanimous decision, but it was a good money fight for him. Haye then fought Dereck Chisora the next year in stopping him in the 5th. After that, Haye was out of the ring for 4 years before returning to the ring in January 2016 to defeat Mark De Mori by a 1st round knockout.