Is David Hayes athleticism and elusiveness over-rated?

All that show muscle has people tricked hes some kind of beast at heavy with roy jones' speed and floyd reflexes but the hardest puncher out there.
He is good but a strong ww will crack that china chin of him when it connects.

 

I consider him a naturally quite large cruiserweight/average sized heavyweight. So, I don't know about the weight negatively affecting him, really. As for his elusiveness, I never really rated it that much. He looked relatively elusive against old Ruiz -and against Valuev, while barely engaging. A lot of guys can do that. His defense is not that good to me, but I do consider him an excellent natural athlete. I do like the speed, reflexes, etc. But the D is leaky. He's got that natural ability but he really is a slacker for blocking. If he just mixed up the movement with sound blocking he'd be so much better, imo.

 

His single shot speed is very good for a heavy he doesnt really throw many combos but his one two is rapid
His upper body movement is fast is foot speed a little slower but hes still faster than probably 90% of the heavys out there.
Hes not pernel whittaker elusive but early doors against Ruiz he was moving nicely with good head movement something he looks to be working on for audley- as he gets tagged he does slow down - see the fragomeni fight but speed is still his biggest attribue. Hes a KD rather than KO puncher at heavy weight but hes still got more than enough power to give any heavy trouble if he lands clean

 

I don't think any strong welterweight would crack his chin. ...Perhaps Matthew Hatton but not just any strong welterweight.

 

The fact that he has a suspect chin and has still managed to win a heavyweight world title shows his athleticism and elusiveness is pretty good.

 

Ask Wlad and Vitali about his elusiveness, they haven't been about to land a punch on him in two years!

 

Nailed it!:happy

 

hw! of course:rofl

 

People confuse HAND-SPEED with DEFENSIVE SPEED. Yes, Haye has very fast hands and can punch fast combinations. But his defense and reflexes are just about average, he gets hit a lot as he leaves himself wide open and off-balance a lot.

That's no problem if you're boxing near 40 year old nobodies who are way fast their best but things would look different he he faced guys that were 10 years younger and in their prime.

 

In general, Haye's defense is overrated. He relies solely on his good reflexes and athleticism and has quite poor technical defense in my opinion. He should definitely retire in a year cos if he tries to fight on after he slows he'll get hit a lot.

That being said, for a HW in 2010 he's very elusive. The fact that he has good footwork and lateral movement is almost unique in this era. We have to remember also that there are no hard hitting guys out there with really fast hands. Wlad's as good as it gets and he really isn't THAT fast and he rarely lets his hands go.

 

:rofl:rofl:rofl

I bet Allan Green could do some damage too.

 

I think the real thing that's overrated is the man's "killer instinct", certainly for such a fast and hardpunching boxer.
Tyson pointed it out clearly... almost any other puncher in the HW division would have gone after Ruiz the moment he got up from the 1st round KD, even if he doesn't look ready to go you still go after him because you know he's hurt anyway and clearly can't take your punches and probably is somewhat afraid by then. Easy night, easy money, and your name grows.
He didn't attack at all in the Valuev fight, and eventually did after a punch wobbled him in the 12th (too little too late).

If I mentioned that in the forum, some Haye fan came up with a highlight reel from Haye's time as a cruiser (like that's relevant in this matter) and they refused to accept the conclusion.

 

He has power, no doubts about that. The speed is there too but that´s all he has. He gets tired fast. Even in the Ruiz fight he was on the ropes a few times and you could see he was tired.

 

I think his footspeed may be abit overrated too. Yes he's fast in comparison to others in hvy but he looks clumsy when moving about. He's definitely no second coming to Ali or Pep lol. He needs work to do on his footwork.