By Luke Furman

From his training camp in Austria, WBO/IBO/IBF heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko fully explained the background as to why his older brother, WBC champion Vitali Klitschko, is not facing David Haye on Saturday night in Hamburg. The two sides have been negotiating for nearly two years. In 2009, both brothers had scheduled fight with Haye, and the British champion withdrew from both of those dates. At the end of the day, Haye rejected a possible fight with Vitali, according to Wladimir. 

"We had a conversation about it because both of us wanted to fight him. My brother told me 'Let me take this man.' At the end of the day, we tossed a coin and I won [in 2009]. So then it was set on June 20th [of 2009] and as you know the fight didn't happen. We were going to fight and then he said 'no, I want to fight Vitali' and it was set up for September [of 2009]," Klitschko said.

"We did so much work on contracts and everything was agreed [upon]. He was basically signing the same contract for Vitali that he signed before [to fight me]. Then at the last second he signed a contract, with options, with Sauerland [to fight Nikolai Valuev]. The same options that he complained about so much [in our contracts] to the media. Why do you think Sauerland is involved in this promotion, because they still have options on Haye. So Vitali had to fight Chris Arreola in Los Angeles."

"So this time I told Vitali, 'brother, I was first [in line] and you were second. Now it's my turn, and by the way David Haye doesn't want to fight you. You hit too hard, you're too tough for him and David Haye wants to take on the weakest one of the two brothers.'

Luke Furman covers the Polish boxing scene for bokser.org.