Haye was good, but aside from a few performances where he fought down to his level of his opponent, Fury is and always was a class above Haye.
Picked Fury in 2013 when it was due to happen, hindsight is giving me no reason to question that position. Tyson showed some loss of control in the ring that year, but he was aware of the danger Haye represented and wouldn't have given him free hits; with his i's dotted and his t's crossed he was too versatile for the Bermondsey bomber, who would've been drowned in the deep waters.
Fury got to Haye mentally Fury even said in the presser he'd stop smack talking before Haye pulls out...and was never confident of Haye getting in the ring. He was right as usual.
Haye was not mentally tough enough, not taking anything away from his skillset, but showed tendency to pull excuses at opportune times. That said he was 2 weight world champ so gets my respect, that is no small achievement.
Fury has improved since then, but I'd have to still go for Fury - huge size/reach advantage and sheer grit that would have found a way to win even if Haye had some success. In addition, Haye was also rapidly declining physically at this point - Chisora was the last time he looked somewhere close to the fighter he was in his prime. Easy to say with hindsight, but Haye should have retired after the Chisora win, didn't he always say he'd retire at 31 or something?
Looked like an easy win for haye back in 2013 tbh. We,ll never know now...but haye looked the odds on favourite. Fury made a lot of mistakes back then. Plus everyone thought fury had only really beating an unmotivated chisora...which wasn,t unusual for del boy. Still say fury has to be one of the most improved fighters ever over the years. Remember watching from his debut...although he had some good attributes he never looked good enough to reach the heights that he has. Suspect it would have been a great fight tho. And fury might have pulled off what would have been a big shock at the time on par with beating klitchko at the point he did. Haye would have been confident tho and fury was easier to hit than he is now and easier to hit than klitchko was when haye fought him. Haye was injury prone tho. Dont yhink there was any mind games going on...his body/training methods just kept letting him down. Although fury did get the better of the press conferences. Haye looked uncomfortable around him. Still think haye might have got him out of there back then. He,d learned from the klitchko fight.
Fury would have won. Haye's win over Valuev was a dicey affair. Haye was never a real threat at the real top of Heavy. Good punch but shakey chin and too small.
Since Fury beat Klitschko without a stacked resume, he wouldn't need one to beat the guy who ran away from Wlad. On a bad toe, all night. Well at that. 32 fights 16 years vs 31 fights 12 years. Since this is the standard tomorrow's HW's will have to live up to. I hope they exceed it for the sake of boxing.
