Reality for Haye

This. They both have the ability to KO each other. This is boxing. Too many fans are way too confident in either guy winning. Wlad has power, Haye has power, Wlad has a questionable chin, Haye has a questionable chin. Could be a good back and forth fight. Could be a blow out. I can't predict this one.

 

Are you serious? Valuev couldn't hit Haye AT ALL in the fight. He landed a few jabs and that's about it. Haye made Valuev look like a chump. Ruiz wasn't really connecting at a high ratio either. You make Haye sound like Arturo Gatti. He's really not.

 

The only outcome of this fight that would shock me is Haye UD12...I could see any other possibility under the sun, except Haye outboxing Wlad...

 

I know Valuev didn't land tons of punches but still landed his jab, and Valuev is horribly slow. But I watched Ruiz land very easily in that fight, but we all know Ruiz is not a hard puncher at all. Did you see the Barrett fight? Barrett knocked down Haye, and this was an old, slow version of Barrett. Wlad whooped the young, prime Barrett pretty bad.

Honestly, do you think Wlad's fast powerful jab will land on Haye fairly easily?

 

People will always see fights how they want to see them. Valuev in my opinion landed next to nothing, even with his jab. Ruiz landed a few, but Haye rolled with most of them. Against Barrett I felt Haye was off balance after he squared up and got caught with a shot that put him down but didn't really faze him. It was a legit knockdown but not really a tarnish on Haye's chin.

To answer your question, I honestly don't know. Haye has good to very good head movement and tends to be quite herky jerky with how he moves his head. As a result it can be difficult to time him with any kind of straight punch whilst he is not throwing punches himself. Haye could also move back away from Wlad to try and get him to give up his height and/or to overextend himself so he can counter. Haye has good countering ability.

A lot of it, in my opinion, depends on how Haye fights. Nearly all of Wlad's past opponents have either come at him or when they have stood off, done nothing in the way of throwing shots as Wlad came forward. I know from personal experience that going straight at a tall guy with a good jab can make your night very long and difficult indeed, unless you happen to be Joe Frazier or Henry Armstrong, and can move your body and head in perpetual motion and have a good chin.

Even then, a competent, good jabber (and tall guys who are vulnerable physically tend to be out of necessity) will double, triple or quadruple up his jab and at least catch with you with the last one some of the time, which he can then follow with a right hand. You can't really catch a guy's jab as thunderous as Wlad's either, it will still hurt you and set you up.

The only other thing that seems to work against a guy with as a good jab as Wlad, again from personal experience of being on the receiving end of it against the same tall guy, (and I suppose from watching fights) is to move laterally and give angles to offset the guy's rhythm. Standing straight in front of a jab or coming to it is suicide, but even making small movements with your whole body to the left or right and throwing shots can really cause the jabber problems.

You do this not only when you see the punch (which can open up some really tasty looking countering windows, especially if you have a good right hand and move to the right outside the left handed jab - the whole left side of the guy's jaw is just there, if not because his shoulder covers it, his temple) but even when he is not as it makes him reluctant to throw the jab as he knows it is unlikely to connect. By moving to the left of it you negate the right hand that follows by stepping outside of it, by moving right you move away from the right hand, robbing it of its power. Look at what Hopkins did to Pavlik (who has a very good jab or double jab, right hand combination), he moved laterally, often to the right, away from the right hand, and then he stepped in to counter as Pavlik followed him around, or after Pavlik missed the first jab.

Haye needs to do something similar. You are right that Klitschko's jab is extremely fast, sharp, snappy, powerful, and above all devilishly accurate. What's more is that it isn't lazy - Wlad brings it straight back. By standing in front of it or going forward recklessly (Haye, IMO has a very good D when he is not throwing, as soon as he starts attacking he is reckless and sometimes off balance - mainly because he throws with such force and with his whole bodyweight) Haye is in trouble.

So overall, not sure if Wlad will land the jab consistently. If he can Haye is in for a long night, if not, Wlad is. Haye has to be intelligent about the fight. Wlad is EXTREMELY good at what he does. It's up to Haye to ruin Wlad's plans. Can he do it? We'll see soon enough.