The "Haye is the defining fight in Wlad's career" myth

I keep reading how many boxing pundits feel that Wlad "needs" to fight Haye to give his resume some credibility and weight and allegedly Haye is the right opponent to fill the void.

Is that really so? Let's look at the facts:

1. Haye has a total of 26 fights. His quality of opposition is better than his short track record suggestion, but overall he not an overly experienced nor a well-known Heavyweight on a global scale.
2. Haye has said multiple times he wants to retire in 2011. If he lost to Wlad he would most likely retire on the spot, considering he just collected the highest purse ever in his career.

For the sake of the argument let's just hypothetically assume Wlad wins against Haye and Haye sticks with his self-imposed retirement schedule.

If Wlad knocked out Haye and Haye retired on the spot then what value does the win have for Wlad's track record? Very little. Yes, Wlad could add the WBA belt to his collection. But other than that he will have beaten a young fighter who happened to carry one of the ABC belts and who will be quickly forgotten because he chose to retire upon losing his biggest fight.

If Haye continued boxing after losing to Wlad and continued to win a number of meaningful big fights, maybe win another belt or two then that would give Wlad's previous victory some more weight. But by announcing his retirement Haye is basically watering down the value of his own scalp. Haye will be referred as largely built on hype and self-promotion who fell apart once he stepped up to the elite HW level.

That's why my conclusion is that a potential win over Haye will not bring Wlad much respect when boxing pundits look back at the fight in 10 years time.

 

My point isn't even that Haye is or is not dangerous. Because that matters very little in fighters track records doesn't it?

Tua was possibly one of the most dangerous fighters Lewis as fought and won against but that was far from his best or "career-defining" win, largely because Tua never achieved much in boxing after losing to Lewis.

In 10 years time, will boxing pundits really remember Haye was dangerous? Or will they remember he was a master of self-promotion who failed at playing with the big boys at HW and hung up his gloves?

 

I agree with the general idea that Haye is dangerous. But his true worth can only be proven if he sticks around for another 4-5 years and builds a tested HW legacy and track record.

By retiring so young after a potential loss we will have no idea how good (or bad) a HW Haye really is/was.

 

Let's look at it from another angle.

What value would Lewis' win over a prime Vitali have if Vitali retired on the spot after losing to Lewis? And what value do we now attribute to Lennox' win after we see the track record Vitali put together after losing to Lewis.

Now one could argue that Lewis win over Vitali was one of the best three wins in Lewis entire record. Had Vitali retired on the spot after the loss then nobody would pay Lewis much respect for the win as Vitali was just another untested, young contender who wasn't ready for the championship levels.

 

You are right, I didn't consider this (remote) possibility. A Ward-Gatti type of war with multiple knock-downs on both sides and tons of drama would obviously give this fight a great deal of weight.