Let's pit the Andrew Golota of 1996 against the version of David Haye that brutalized John Ruiz last time out. The Polish fighter showed some tremendous skills in his two wars with Riddick Bowe, out-jabbing Big Daddy, and strafing him with right hands. Haye of course has great hand speed for a man of his size, and undoubtedly has the power to not only hurt Golota, but perhaps stop him. Thoughts?
Can you really cure Golota's questionable mentality and decision making and make it a non-factor when considering a matchup? That's about as fair as working on the presumption Haye has a chin like Chuvalo at heavyweight.
Thats the point I was going to make. Golota being a bit flakey was so much part of his game that its hard to just ignore it,
By all means, factor in Golota's tendency to break the rules, but I'd hope nobody would actually predict a Haye win by DQ. Please don't.
yes golatas mental weakness is amassive part of his game and to just discount it from your evaluation is wrong
Golotas trainers say he has never shown even a half of what he was able to do during sparring sessions.
It's hard to say at this stage. However I do think Golota would be very suspect to fast, hard punches he didn't see coming. He is very stiff and could then be overwhelmed by a barrage of speed.
Someone wins big, and early I'd say Golota KO4. I just think that fundamentally he's more sound than Haye, who gets sloppy quite often and has a leaky defence. Judging by Haye's career so far at heavyweight he's a lot more cautious, which will play into the hands of Golota who wasn't keen on opponents coming at him (Lewis, Tyson, Bowe at times) - Haye hasn't proven his ability to keep out of harms way against anything more than plodding HW's with next to no handspeed.
I say Haye early. Golota didn't have the best chin and he was very upright and not the best defence so would come unstuck against a quick guyb with power and timing like Haye