David Haye - Vitali Klitschko....Does anyone else fear revisionism after the fight?

I have a sneaking suspicion that you wouldn't have thought his fight against Rahman was "comatose-inducing" if it was Rahman doing the EXACT same thing to Wlad. It is a simple matter of having unreasonable standards set upon him, and a lot of critics who are more interested in seeing him lose... then they are at watching the beauty of a great ring technician at work. Those who hate Wlad's fights, aren't true fans of boxing. Boxing is the art of hitting without being hit. Wlad is a master. Not only that... but he normally completely dismantles his opponent throughout the fight and ends with a knockout. If you can't appreciate that... then you aren't exactly a fan of the sport itself.

 

Well, wise men change their minds...but fools....

People changing stances after a fight can be annoying. However, if you think about it properly, it's understandable - in fact, you'd be silly not to. Most people estimate that Vitali is a superior fighter to Haye and expect that he will carry his previous form into this fight. If Haye wins, the reason will almost certainly be because Vitali has diminished, probably owing to ring rust and other factors. Those who predicted Vitali to win will have been incorrect about Vitali being able to repeat previous form, however, there is no reason, based on that, to offer a similarly wrong synopsis of what happened in the fight as they did in their pre-fight prediction; i.e. ‘Haye is better than Vitali’.

I have changed my stance heaps of times in such a manner. In your example, for instance, I was one of the people that thought that Tszyu would take Hatton out. Hatton’s fans thought that Tszyu's age and ring rust would be his failing, however I cited the Shamba Mitchell II fight as an example of Tszyu's good form, and reasoned that he would beat Ricky down. Hatton's fan's typically responded 'Mitchell? - Mitchel aint ****'. After what transpired in the fight - Tszyu getting worn out and quitting - I reflected and realised that the Hatton fans had been right. Tszyu may have looked devastating against Mitchell, but that fight (because of Mitchell's capabilities) left some things that were diminished about Tszyu unexposed - namely, his ring rust, slowness, and decreased resistance. To me is was simply vindication of what Ricky, his trainer, his fans and any of the analysts predicting Hatton to be Tszyu said before the fight; basically, that Tszyu at 36 and barely active wouldn’t be able to withstand Ricky's style. The Hatton fans, post fight, typically shifted their arguments to one maximizing Hatton's superiority and ignoring (previously stated) factors relative to age and rust. Pretty much Hatton supporters and Tszyu supporters swapped pre fight stances after it was over. However, it was not at all sensible for those who backed Ricky to do this, as the fight went down exactly as they supposed - Ricky wore the man down late and the old guy couldn't hack it. Myself, I accepted I Tszyu at that stage was not equipped to fight that kind of fight, which meant that I was wrong in what I thought, but not a reason to compound my wrongness by pretending that Tszyu's age, inactivity and other factors weren't relevant in that fight. 'Revisionism' is not a dirty word, it's the sensible thing to do as new events shed light on your opinions.

None of this is to say that fighters don’t have their wins unfairly discredited at times or their losses excused, but you have to be willing to make allowances for fighters not living up to the form you expected them to. If you reevaluate your stance whenever new evidence comes to the fore, you are being as objective as possible in a fan based sport. If you just select from the pool arguments that best boost your favorite fighters status, you are basically..nuthugging.

It will of course depend on what specifically happens when they fight, but If Haye somehow stops Vitali the reasonable assumption will be that Vitali was of diminished capacity, since he is a guy that matched it with Lennox Lewis and Haye basically has **** all to recommend him in that league. If Haye manages to go on and be the unified, long reigning, superstar heavy of this era, then it will be reasonable to muse that Vitali wasn't diminished. But really, not until that time.

At the end of the day (**** i'm copping Joe Calzaghe now), all we can is chip away adding up resume's and, factoring in variables, etc. It's never the complete picture and the exact truth is always out of reach, but what else can you do.

 

either man wins there will always be revisionism. I expect Vitali to win and people will say Haye had done nothing at heavy and been hurt vs a zero at cruiser and lost to another guy by KO.

 

If Haye wins the fight then it will probably be Vitali's last so there will always be questions asked. It's down to what Haye goes on to do after this fight that will decide what people think of him and probably how people rate this win. If he loses 3 in a row after this people will obviously say Vitali was past it.

It will be great for boxing if Haye wins, someone who fights the best whenever they can (although to be fair to the Klits they do this) and someone who will draw in the fans. I can see how you would dislike him as a person but surely any boxing fan can acknowledge that a good looking,young,fit and exciting champion is good for boxing.

 

Haye is going to get sparked i think. Cannot see him beating Vitali.

 

That's going to be the revisionism. When Haye gets blasted, they will give Vitali no credit. "Oh, well of course a huge heavyweight like Vitali should mop up the floor with a blown up cruiserweight like Haye."

And when Wlad ko's Arreola they will say that Wlad "has yet to fight anyone that can give him a good fight." Or something equally silly.

The only way Vitali doesn't win will be if he really is (way) over the hill. But he looked pretty refreshed against Peter.

Haye should fight Peter first, though. He has no business getting an immediate title shot. Poor Povetkin had to go through that elimination tournament to earn his shot.

 

The real problem is the people that pick against the fighter they hate, like the Klit bros. or Calzaghe, or Manny, and then give no credit when they turn out to be terribly wrong in their prediction. Many Wlad haters picked Chris Byrd and Brewster to win in their respective rematches with Wlad, for various cockamamy reasons. But Wlad got not a bit of credit for proving them wrong. It's always "oh, he really was totally shot" It's NEVER, "gee, maybe Wlad is better than I thought."

Byrd gave Povetkin a thrilling battle well after his rematch with Wlad. Austin fought a draw (that he probably should have won) with Sultan but was not even in the same class as Wlad.

 

Nah, it would just prove that the Hayemaker is the REAL DEAL.:hey

 

So then, we can say that 40 year old Carl Thompson is clearly a better boxer than David Haye, right?

 

Same here. In fact, I think Vitlai will finish Haye faster than he finshed Peter.

While Haye is likely a top ten heavy, I think Vitlai needs to go for style points here, because Haye's rabid fans will be jumping ship the second he goes down.

 

This fight has big hype and money written all over it. If Haye falters, at least he had what it takes to get in the ring with Vitali and hyped the fight up, and if VK loses, we got ourselves and even bigger match of revenge with Wladimir Klitschko. For the sake of the HW division, Haye should win the VK fight, but as a fan I'm pulling for a Klitschko like always.

 

I would not be concerned about this happening, as Vitali will inevitably Knock Haye the **** OUT,

I give Haye all the credit in the wolrd though for stepping up to fight Vitali, he has some serious stones

 

Vitali will kick Haye's arse easily, knock him out like he did Hide in London. Who in the Hell has Haye ever beaten? The extreme hate for the Klitschko Bros. is because they keep beating all the hater's heroes! Yes, Peter, who would knock Haye out cold.

 

I worry about the reverse.

Vitali beats him (as he with near certainty will) and then we get asked: Who was Haye ?


Haye has one chance and only one chance. The same chance Byrd had.


If he's healthy and uninjured, he could give Haye free shots the way Mayorga used to do and still win.





BTW, I didn't discredit Hatton for Tszyu being inactive.

I discredited him for the atrocious reffing job of Dsvid Paris.


Different ref would, IMO, have resulted in a different result.

But that's all water under the bridge now.