Why didn't Haye fight Cunningham for cruiserweight undisputed?

Cunningham did not bring the commercial element to the UK; nobody knew who he was. Haye was after a name that would sell, and by this point in his career, he was eyeing up the easier and higher-paying fights. Cunningham should've been stopped in the first round of the Hernandez fight. He got up and immediately went over again on chicken legs. I'm not saying he wasn't a good, world-level guy; he was, but so was Mormeck, Wlodarczyk, and Jones. They were all in the same bracket for me.

Hernandez was nowhere near as explosive as Haye, either. If Haye could knock out Chisora, and if Fury could knock out Cunningham, then Haye would've managed it, I think anyway. That's the angle I am coming from. Yeah, I don't disagree that Haye would lose to Usyk or Breidis easily; both are amongst the best cruisers of all time. Opetaia hasn't really been properly tested yet, nor has he fought anyone with the power that Haye had CW, so that could be a pick'em fight. I don't think Hunter or Gevor beat him either.

 

I'm not sure if you followed the sport at the time, but some of what you have written is not entirely true. There is context missing. Yes, Cunningham did beat Huck and Wlodarczyk who both went on to have very successful careers, but at the time Cunningham fought them, they were largely unproven at the very top level.

Cunningham and Wlodarczyk fought for a vacant title in both fighters' first title challenge. Wlodarczyk had had a lot of fights, but mainly against lower level opposition. He was seen as a typical Euro fighter of that time: tough, decent enough fundamentals, but limited. Him and Fragomeni were probably rated about the same. They even fought to a draw with Wlodarczyk winning the rematch.

Huck, too, was relatively inexperienced against decent opposition at the time of his title challenge to Cunningham. Huck did, though, have some hype behind him due to the German market being big at the time because of the Klitschko's. He was seen as very crude, but hard hitting with a lot of heart. Like an even more limited Arthur Abraham. After getting beat by Cunningham, many people thought he was a hype job. Him getting stopped by a relatively light hitter in Cunningham didn't look good, although, if I remember right, Huck being knackered and inexperienced did account for the loss more.

As I stated above, Huck and Wlodarczyk improved and had successful careers, but they were not that highly rated at the time. Cunningham also fell into this category. Clearly skilled, but he just wasn't well known and his wins against Huck and Wlodarczyk weren't seen as great wins at the time. They were wins that improved over time due to the careers they had post Cunningham fights.

There just wasn't any real call for a Haye v Cunningham fight at the time. Haye was seen as the number one CW due to beating the consensus number one CW at the time in Mormeck, and his win over Maccarinnelli, who was coming of a win over Braithwaite, was seen as a good win against a top CW. Haye was viewed as one of the best ever to fight at CW (obviously, at the time, and still to a certain extent today, it's not seen as a division with a rich history like other divisions). Cunningham was just seen as a titlist. Unknown to most fans, but the ones who had seen him fight could see that he was talented.

After the Enzo Mac fight the clamour was for Haye to move to HW. This had always been Haye's plan and he spoke about it often. He had mentioned in his last few CW fights that he was struggling making weight. He was supposed to move up after the Mormeck fight as he didn't think Maccarinnelli would fight him. When Mac said he would fight him, Haye took one more fight at CW for a huge British clash then moved up to HW.

Haye even had a HW fight against Bonin before the Mormeck fight to test out the waters at HW.

With hindsight, it's a shame that Haye never fought Cunningham, but at the time there just wasn't much appetite for it. Cunngham was barely known, undisputed wasn't as highly regarded as it is now, and CW was always just a stepping stone to HW for Haye.

 

Maybe he should have taken some big fights earlier in his career when he was offered them then, like the AJ fight for example which he turned down (even though neet/redbeard consistently somehow manages to say it was the other way around despite Ortiz manager being on record admitting they turned down a career high payday for the fight)

Fact is the fight happened, Ortiz lost a UD and got knocked down multiple times. You making up a result of fantasy fight by taking away things that happened only from one fighter isn’t going to change that.

 

He would have been in his room in his parents house beating off over deontay wilder posters on his wall and posting on here under one of his alt names.

 

Lets see how good Ruiz is at 43, since you're so confident Luis Ortiz's age wasn't a significant factor in his loss. It's funny he won 6 rounds despute being way past his prime with no legs. It might be because Ruiz is not world class, him beating aj says more about aj than it does Ruiz. Ruiz lost to Parker and couldn't even beat Miller, Prime Luis Ortiz smokes him and I'll be bumping this thread when Ruiz reaches 43, just to see how good he is when when he's as old as Luis Ortiz. See you in 7 years

 

I couldn’t care less about how good Andy Ruiz is when he’s 43

 

Prime Ortiz couldn't smoke a cigar

Overatred as hell

 

That doesn't mean anything?
He didn't need an excuse to move up. I expect he wanted to move up for bigger fights.
He had beaten the man at CW, had his big domestic dust up and went up to straight away go looking for the top HW.
Doesn't sound like an excuse for anything

There wasn't a demand though
The fight with Barrett happened because of his big destructive win over T Fields.
Haye even held a poll around that time, when looking for a fight against one of the Klitschko brothers

You seem to be looking for an issue that isn't there. 1-1 between O'Neil and Mormeck was more than Cunningham had done when going 1-1 with Wlodarczyk who drew with Fragomeni who you mention for Haye.
See how ridiculous it is now?

Enzo was the bigger fight for Haye.
No more than that
Enzo had made more title defences than Cunningham at that time

He was
I guess you are proper not too familiar with Thompson and are looking at his record rather than the fighter.
You can look at the Ring annual ratings and see Thompson at #6 in 2004 and #4 in 2005

He wasn't a LHW at that time.
Long passed
I think you are just looking at Boxrec and not the fighter or history. He had been at CW for over a decade before the Haye fight. Which makes your point look like you have some sort of agenda

 

Haye would have splattered lil Stevey boy. Within the space of 14 months from beating Fragomeni for the European title and breaking into the Rings Top 10 Cruisers, he smacked up Mormeck and then unified against Enzo.

Haye beat Mormeck virtually the same time Cunningham beat Huck, Haye vs Enzo was the biggest fight in the division money wise given how dead it was for stars but domestically here it grabbed headlines, dubbed the World 1 vs 2 Cruiserweights. Unified quickly vs Enzo and dipped out the division. Haye historically had trouble staying at cruiser, luckily he stayed in shape from Mormeck which was the big question going into the Enzo fight how has his weight cut gone and whether he would be weight drained.

Absolutely no need whatsoever to stick around for Steve Cunningham when Haye was skyrocketing in the sport at this point, was arguably the U.Ks number 1 star and one of the fastest rising names in the sport. Haye was a showman, a entertainer, loves a Pound note, made all the sense in the world to go and chase the heavyweight titles instead of wasting another 4-6 months chasing a fight with Steve Cunningham who had he gone out there and chinned inside 2 rounds no one would have been like oh wow he chinned Steve Cunningham what a victory.

When Haye stepped up to Heavyweight it was a big deal, it actually felt like he was there to save the division from the dictator robots. Even the David vs Goliath fight was massive in the UK, like 500,000 PPVs.

Saying Haye ducked Cunningham is would be like saying Canelo ducked Caleb Plant if they never fought. Beat Callum Smith, beat Billy Joe, if he had just moved up to fight Bivol instead and left Plant because it was pointless and no one cared, somebody making a thread 10 years later saying Canelo ducked Caleb Plant instead of going for undisputed.