How would you have managed David Haye's heavyweight career? Haye moved up to heavyweight beating Monte Barrett. Then he beat Valuev in an MD and proceeded to beat the ghost of John Ruiz and Audley Harrison. Then he fought Wlad in his fifth fight at heavyweight. Was this the wrong approach? IMO he should have been matched vs the likes of Chisora and Povetkin before fighting Wlad. He should have built up a proper resume at heavyweight before jumping in with Wlad. This would have also allowed him to get to a more faded version of Wlad and not the peak version.
I thought his career was handled very well at heavyweight. The media absolutely loved the story of him beating a giant, they didn't care how limited Valuev was or that he'd already been exposed at world level, Haye became a mainstream star on the back of that fight. A multiple seven figure purse to bash up a guy in Audley who was absolutely terrified of him wasn't something anybody would turn down. Povetkin and Chisora wouldn't have done much to prepare him for Wlad style wise either. Haye's attitude changed from his days at 200 pounds from being in it to prove himself number one in the world to, with no disrespect meant at all, a cash grab attitude at heavyweight. Something I never held against him at all.
Povetkin was no joke back then. I'd say there's a healthy chance that the hype train could get stopped there before even reaching Wlad.
Povetkin and Chisora were stylistically different from Wlad, sure. But fighting and beating them would have strengthened Haye's resume and all time standing. He could have built up a nice legacy at heavyweight. And if he could delay fighting Wlad into 2014/2015, he would give himself a way better shot at winning.
What you saying?that he overdid the Peds to get his body up to heavyweight an eventually his body broke down and he became too injury prone to continue?
More his body seemed to break down yeah. I think almost everyone at top level used some kind of PED so I don't really go there sometimes.
Yeah no one want say it about Peds but ain’t it more suspicious when you get cruiserweights going up to heavyweights an having to put on maybe 20+ pounds of muscle in up to 6 months or so? That can’t be good for the body in the long term
If it was about financial success then I wouldn’t have changed anything. He got the biggest paying fights and without having to go through much to get there. As for having a more impressive run, he could kept busier and perhaps faced a few other top contenders.
He accomplished what he could. In beating Valuev and old Ruiz, they built a narrative around him that was partly truth and partly fiction. Then they cashed him out against Klitschko. The Chisora win was a nice bonus that has aged well. As noted above, it would have been nice if he had fought Fury. A lot of questions that linger to this day about the eras would have been answered.
