Analysing Wladimir Klitschko vs David Haye - Gif heavy

I've mentioned it a few times around the board and covered some elements of it briefly in this thread discussing a theoretical Haye - Vitali matchup.

I feel the fight has come under a lot of (perhaps deserved criticism) for being boring but I personally felt it was a pretty tense affair, very interesting from a tactical perspective and that Steward had an excellent gameplan for Wlad, which he followed and implemented to a T.

I've used videos from both the HBO and RTL broadcasts to try and illustrate my points.

Firstly I'll start with Wlads main weapon in his arsenal, his jab.

In the lead-up to the fight, Steward gave a few interviews (the first of which with Jenna, here)

In his interview with Sky he stated that

You can see in the opening moments of the first round as Wlad comes out, with a much higher level of aggression than in other fights (where he would normally claim the ring immediately and try to hold it with his jabbing, holding and footwork)

He immediately pressures Haye and keeps him on the backfoot

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His jab, as Steward discussed, isn't his normal jab he throws, which is normally held low at his hip, comes straight out and comes back, and is occasionally pawed or used to simply push his opponent back.

He constantly feints with it, and very quickly too.

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This feinting has a few purposes

1. David Haye is a counter puncher
By feinting his punches and movements, he limits any counter punching oppertunities - I have to say I was incredibly impressed by Haye's head/upperbody movement in this fight, he was extremely quick to avoid any punches thrown his way by slipping them, moving away from punches (not always recommended, but worked well for him) or patting them away with his right hand. If these were jabs thrown and not brought back quick enough, or pawed, or not feinted, Haye would have had a much greater chance to slip the punch and while Wlad was vulnerable throw his own - and Haye's combination of handspeed and KO power meant this of course, was an undesireable outcome for Wlad

2. Haye has poor balance
Haye has a strange combination (also shared by Pacquiao) of at once having both poor balance, but good (unorthadox) footwork. Very fast feet and good lateral movement, but from a pure technical point of view, his feet are spread too far apart in his usual stance which means after he throws one or two shots, he gets completely out of position/squared up and has to reset again.

A look at the first gifs you can see not only does the feinting keep him on the backfoot constantly having to slip punches or feinted punches, Wlads footwork constantly keeps him under pressure and off balance, repeatedly unable to set himself to throw any accurate shots.

Haye has to slip, and bob and weave and Wlads feints numerous times before Wlad would finally throw his jab - combine this with the constant pressure and the threat of the right hand and this would have been incredibly mentally tiring.

Haye's headmovement/speed was good enough that when Wlad didn't feint on occasion, he was able to slip and hit him

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Wlads height, reach, footwork, use of feints and control of range meant that Haye was reduced to lunging shots in an attempt to land anything at all.


When Haye did get close, or within range, Wlad would simply step back and his superior size allowed him to be out of reach - something Haye couldn't do. Funnily enough these are two gifs are almost identical but are separate incidents from round 1

Haye lunges in here and gets out of position and Wlad throws a jab at him (surprisingly Haye manages to slip this aswell)

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Haye & booths gameplan was simple.

Come in light, train to avoid Wlads jab (which he did a magnificent job of during the fight) and hit Wlad with a counter & finish him. The problem was for Haye was that he waited, and waited, and waited, and waited for an opportunity to be able to counter Wlad with something - but it never came.

If Wlad is anything, it's cautious, he will be careful even at the safest of times (as safe as you can be with a guy who is trying to punch you) and combine his natural caution with Stewards gameplan and it left very few opportunities for Haye to knock him out.

People have accused Haye of being gunshy but I think this is an unfair accusation to level at him, there wasn't a reluctance to throw, there just wasn't many openings. People have also said 'he should have just went for it'

I don't see how much more 'going for it' you can do aside from chasing your opponent around the ring throwing wild desperate punches.

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Not a criticism of Wlad here - he's not an idiot, he simply refused to engage Haye at Haye's fight - and it was not possible for Haye to win Wlads fight.

Each attempted punch (or feint) from Haye would draw a withdrawal from Wlad, stepping back a couple steps, out of range, before resetting, and pressuring again from behind his jab.

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Clever boxing from Wlad. He had the ability to stay away from his opponent, box behind the jab and not engage when they were in range. Something Amir Khan has gotten (and rightly so) a lot of stick for not doing recently, had he, there's a good chance he could have won his last fight, but that's another matter.

Wlad also did a very good job of using his half-extended lead hand to not only keep Haye at bay with (a little push or pull behind the head) he managed to get it in the way of a lot of Haye's punches, when Haye would attempt to throw Wlad would extend his arms, and step backwards, it may not be textbook or pretty but it was a pretty efficient way of staying out of punching distance.

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One of the few times Haye did manage to get through cleanly with a counter just before the bell for the 4th round. (a good little exchange too)

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Something you can also see in the above clip Wladimir does not get enough credit for - his reflexes. Throughout the entire fight he was incredibly quick, of hand, foot, and mind - for a man of his size he had superlitive speed when stepping back out of range from Haye, and was not too sluggish with what head movement he used either.

Overall I think this was a very entertaining fight to watch, I don't think it was at all the shutout that some people described, nor was it the barn-burner some predicted.

Neither man had too many real eyegrabbing moments in the fight, and did not land too many right hands - infact Haye probably shaded both the latter, but Wlad won because of his excellent ring generalship, he managed to force Haye to fight out of his comfort zone for the majority of the fight, limiting him to wild amateurish swings. He followed a gameplan devised by Steward almost without fault and it deservedly got him the win.

1. Wlad minimized the openings for Haye to attack
2. Kept him on the backfoot and off-balance
3. Refused to engage and give Haye an oppertunity to floor him

He fought the fight at range at his distance

In the words of Emmanuel Steward they 'completely shut him down stylistically'

Haye was a difficult opponent for Wlad, he had a lot of attributes that could have caused him problems, but Wlad handled him well and Haye/Booths lack of a plan B hurt him badly.

I came out of this fight having greater respect for both mens abilities - Haye because I thought he would be absolutely jabbed to death and lulled into taking right hand after right hand ala most of Wlads other opponents, while I felt he coped very well with Wlads jab, avoiding most of or rolling with them even though they were excellently thrown.

And I was very impressed with Wlads speed - as I'm sure Haye was, he kept in step with him throughout the fight, he's a genuine athlete.

Sorry for boring you all with this - I could have gifs and described more rounds (the ones currently are up to round 5) but the fight largely followed a similar pattern throughout.

In short I think both mens performance was underrated, they each did subtle things very well.

 

Completely agree :good

To a lot of people this sealed the fact they didn't rate Haye but to me it was the other way round

Aside from Wlad and perhaps ageing Vitali he is clear ahead of the other heavies imo

 

Nah he generally has poor balance, it was one of the things Steward worked on formatting his gameplan around. Click the link it takes you to Manny's interview on boxnation talking about it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0g7hkuXThM&feature=player_detailpage#t=651s

it sounds obvious because Steward is prob the goat or definitely one of them, but it was a brilliant tactical plan, it's quite amaing hearing him explain it in this and other interviews - even though he said it was one of the easiest to come up with.

 

Check out the thread I linked in the opening sentence :good

While Vital is equally good at keeping opponents off balance I think there is as huge difference in speed and athleticism between the brothers, Vitali does step /lean back, but unlike Wlad who is quick enough to dart out of the way, Vitali makes himself open to right hands over the top.

Something he has been caught often with despite his reflexes, Solis had success with it against him, and Lewis was able to repeatedly tag him with rights after he had cut him. Vitali seems especially succeptible to that one punch, and unlike Wlad I'm not sure he has the speed to keep Haye occupied to the same degree, or to avoid his punches with such efficiency, and as we've seen against Wlad, Haye will be going for that punch almost exclusively. I am really not sure he will try to go to the body too much as it'd mean he'd likely be either pushed away or clinched by Vit.

A lot of the problems Wlad posed for Haye will be posed by Vitali, but I think the speed difference will be a huge leveller.