Why didn't Haye fight Cunningham for cruiserweight undisputed?

Ngl Cunningham did call him out, this sounds like a duck. Hayes stamina was suspect at cruiserweight i could see Steve winning down the stretch

 

Cunningham was no joke, very well respected and his risk reward ratio was terrible which makes him a no go for most fighters especially Haye at that time....then Fury used Cunningham for sparring against Haye...whilst Haye brought in stiff chumps like Wilder got battered around then decided he couldn't handle getting embarrased. Haye tried playing a lot of sneaky intimidation tactics for Fury like releasing sparring clips from camp which fighters rarely do, shows lack of confidence really, opposite effect of intended.

 

Cunningham was a hell of a cruiserweight and was too risky for Haye’s mission (which was supposedly to conquest Klitschko).

 

Haye fighting Barrett 8 years after Wlad did and thinking it was some big accomplishment was the most David Haye thing ever. Talk about about a guy over promising and under delivering

 

Haye had incredible natural speed and power, but he was privvy to the business, too. He would consistently look for the biggest fights, rather than the best challengers, but in his defense, these worlds did collide a couple of times; he fought a prime Wlad in Germany, and Mormeck in France, who had just won the WBC strap, but Mormeck had shown his chin could be cracked, as could Wlad; of course, both were calculated risks.

The Cunningham fight did not offer the same purse as a move to heavyweight, and up until this point, Cunningham had not shown the same vulnerabilities. The risk was much higher than the reward. Still, for the record, I think he'd have knocked Cunningham out, especially if Fury managed it; Haye was a much heavier puncher. The mesmeric boxing oracle, Adam Booth, knew this, as he was always 10 steps ahead of everyone, and went down the route to a big-money Klitschko fight, hoping to do what Sanders did to him, but we all know how that panned out.

 

Haye was all about risk vs reward. Haye made more fighting Valuev than he would have made fighting Cunningham.
And while Harrison was a joke of a fight, it was still a massive box office and PPV hit.

Hell, I bet Haye made as much fighting Barret than he did vs Mormeck or Maccarinelli.

 

I don’t hold that against Haye, Cunningham wasn’t a draw, not even in US and even though I believe Haye would have KO’d Cunningham it was a bigger risk than reward. If it generated enough money/fame for Haye he would have took that fight.

I know Haye gets a lot of hate here but he been in some fun fights and delivered some massive KO’s.

Haye knocking out Chisora and his trainer at the same time is as cool as it gets!

 

Do you think Ortiz was a bigger puncher than Fury? To be fair to him, he had Wilder absolutely out on his feet at one point in the first fight. Fury knocked Wilder out through exhaustion, I think, rather than concussive power. He didn't have that insane concussive one-punch equaliser that Haye had.

Haye even managed to flatline Chisora, despite really being a cruiserweight, and the only other person who really managed that was Whyte, because he connected with one of the cleanest left hooks I've seen at heavyweight in about 20 years. Cunnigham was a solid, world-level guy, but I don't think anyone at cruiserweight could have stood up to Haye's power, really.

 

I don't remember anyone clamoring for it at the time. After Haye beat Macarenlli I remember all the talk being about his difficulty making the limit and moving up right after. In the 2000's no one really cared about undisputed and unifying belts or at least did not care as much as they do now.

 

I think you may be right. I don’t think there were any undisputed champions at any weight in 2008. We’ve had so many in recent years with quite a few even becoming undisputed in several weight divisions like Usyk, Crawford and Inoue and single weight undisputed champions like Beterbiev, Bivol, Canelo and Taylor that we forget that 4 belt undisputed matchups is really just a relatively recent trend.

 

I think people just prioritized the biggest fights possible. Guys like Floyd and Manny, Morales, Barrera did not consistently unify divisions

Roy Jones was sort of an anomaly and heavyweight would typically get unification fights being the glamour division but that was kind of it

 

"The undisputed" was not a prestigious honor at this time. That was made up by marketing people and fans started caring about it out of the blue. This is the first era where thats really been an "institution" in the sport of boxing. "Undisputed" is not an honor that a boxer in 2007 or 2008 who grew up in the 1980s was thinking about.

Haye went to HW. Cruiserweight is a tweener division with a very short history. While at this point it has a little tradition this scenario was almost 20 year ago. Even today if a CW can parlay their success into HW oppurtunities they are going to do that. If HW wasn't jammed Jai would probably be there hes at CW because if he went up hes going to have to sit in traffic for years and its a no go right now. Haye did not have to sit in traffic the road was open.

 

"Undisputed" was a big thing in the 1980s.
After the WBA and WBC started recognizing different champions, and then the IBF came along, being 'undisputed' became a big thing.