Why is Haye so confident?

That is a a legitimate, good question to ask.

I guess if Haye were to take away with the jab, that he will do it with movement, by offsetting it, so maybe if Wlad wanted to maintain it, he would have to incooperate cutting the ring down.

Ima play devils advocate here regarding the above, but how much energy is Haye going to expend whilst trying to offset the jab, and is someone as patient/disciplined as what Wlad is, going to dispense with the jab?

I always think, when your jab gets offset, the emphasis is put on you to start cutting the ring down, but that doesn't mean you cant maintain the jab, it just means you incorporate your jabbing with cutting the ring, essentially

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, which is not an easy skill to execute, as you dont want to become predictable, coming in straight lines with it, but if you can get the balance between cutting the ring down, whilst maintaing the jab, it is extremely effective imo, and that type of strategy would shut Haye down completely imo, and would probably lead to him getting knocked out.

If you watch De Gale vs Groves, De Gale started out using the jab, and won the 1st round clearly imo, but in the next few rounds, Groves started to use more movement to offset the jab, but De Gale didn't adapt so he couldn't maintain it, what De Gale should of done, was put more emphasis on cutting the ring down in order to maintain it, instead of that, he holstered it feeling it had been taken away from him, and got further and further away from it.


If you watch Yuri Foreman, he's a 5ft 11 long range fighter, a guy who uses lots of lateral movement, now Cotto is something like 5ft 7, and is seen as a methodical pressure fighter, so straight of bat, thats telling you Cotto could potentially have problems, cause the guy is going to use his height to maintain distance, use the movement to offset the aggression, but, Steward knew how to negate that, Steward understood that he needed to stabilize Foreman's movement, otherwise he would offset Cotto's aggression, so what Steward did, was he got Cotto to stick the jab on him to stablize the movement, but made sure he simultaneously cut the ring down, so Foreman could't offset the jab with the movement, now once Cotto had cut the exits off, and could stick the jab on him, he'd stabilized the movement, and so was able to get his attack going.

Steward gave Cotto a perfect game plan to beat Foreman, which Cotto executed perfectly, pressure behind the jab. What would worry me, if I were Haye, is that it was Steward who put that game plan together for Cotto, and he's Wlad long term trainer.


I know Eliseo Castillo is no where near Haye in terms of levels, but if you watch his fight with Wlad, Wlad did an excellent job of cutting the ring down imo.

 

There is no comparison to be made between Valuev and Wlad imo. Wlad is a lot quicker than Valuev for a start, not just of hand, but most notably of foot!!

That is why Haye has been getting away with potshotting these bigger guys with his speed, they're all methodical slow guys with poor foot-speed, its easier to to move around these guys, use their aggression against them, not to say I dont think he can win, but I think people are getting ahead of themselves if they go on the evidence of his previous fights at HW.

The difference between Wlad, and Haye's previous opponents, is night and day.

 

I dont know if its valid to criticize Wladimir's resume, a guy who has beaten a host of former, or current world champs(at the time), over a guy that's just beaten Audley Harrison, and won his title off Valuev?

 

Great point. You know, after I posted that, that is what I was thinking, that Cotto has bigger balls than Wlad, is more willing.

That explosiveness, Wlads tendency to get disorganized when he cant calculate your attack, is what's making it interesting for me. I think this might come down to whether Wlad can pull the trigger, is ready to counter when Haye mounts his attack, or whether Haye is able to use the speed to get to him, before he can react, cause if he cant, Haye might be able to get closer to him.

I think Steward might of given us an indication that he's getting Wlad to work on pulling the trigger if or when Haye tries to shoot in with his attacks.