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His views on the breakdown in negotiations between Wladimir Klitschko and David Haye:
“Well it’s very frustrating for me as an observer just reading and watching. I spoke to Wladimir. I have not spoken to David naturally, but from Wladimir’s viewpoint this is what happened: they had completed negotiations for a fight which he was hopeful was going to be April 2. Based on I guess the Sky TV scheduling they would not two pay-per-view fights in April because they had the Amir Khan fight. They moved the fight back all the way to July and Wladimir said that was fine and he agreed to it, but he didn’t want to go that long without having a fight, because he wants to get as many fights as he can in during this last stage of his career. So he decided that he wanted to go ahead and take the fight and finish his commitment, which he felt he was obligated to do, with Chisora. So he wanted to do that fight for the 30th. That was all signed and all of a sudden I read when David went berserk.
I spoke to Wladimir about it. I understand David’s viewpoint as well as Wladimir’s, and Wladimir’s point was, ‘It’s just hard for me to just sit and wait for a July 2nd fight because I really don’t have that much faith in Haye’s commitment because he once pulled out of a fight just two weeks or ten days or whatever before a fight. He just pulled out. There was no injury, that’s bull****. Then he negotiates with my brother for a fight, and at the same time they were getting ready to finalize the contract they found out he had been negotiating at the same time for Valuev. Rather than wait a whole year, I decided to just take a fight in April and then I’ll go ahead and fulfill that obligation in July. But I’m not surprised and upset with David’s reaction. I just can’t trust or depend on him with his past record with me and my brother, so I want to take this fight and I’ll still be prepared to fight July 2. So that’s where it stands’.
Now I hear Adamek is coming into the picture and whatever, but there is a lot of confusion. Anything dealing with David Haye is going to be a lot of problems like that. David Haye is a businessman more so than a boxer. That’s the best I can say. I respect him for doing what he’s doing, but I also have to respect Wladimir because Wladimir is a fighter and he wants to fight and he feels that he should fight two to three times a year minimum and that’s what he says he’s going to do. He doesn’t see a problem with fighting in July. That’s David’s situation. So I respect both of them and whatever happens, happens.”
His views on David Haye’s claim that people will say “Why didn’t you fight David Haye” when Wladimir retires:
“I think it will be just the opposite. David Haye has pulled out of a fight totally, and what’s interesting is Wladimir himself had a bad, bad shoulder injury. The fact that he had to have two operations on that same shoulder and he was willing to fight David Haye and under those conditions, and he still went through with a fight when David pulled out and he went on and fought Chagaev. Basically he had to throw the right hand, right hand, because he couldn’t even use his left hook effectively in that fight and he had to go through the two surgeries for that shoulder. Out of his whole career, amateur and professional, which goes back I guess twenty-one years now, he’s only had to pull out of one fight and I was one of the main reasons that he pulled out of this one. I said you cannot go into a fight with this type of injury because it could happen right in the middle of the second round or something and you can end up where you can’t move.
Nevertheless, he does not have the faith that David will be there. It’s not like he canceled the fight. He just said we’ll fight July 2, but I’m going to have a fight April 30 against Chisora because that’s what I should as an honorable fighter and a champion. So he wants to fulfill his commitment since it’s going to take so long in between these fights, and that gave David the excuse to go screaming and hollering. I mean look at his track record. Wladimir’s never ran from anyone, he’s damn sure not running from David Haye. But David Haye is the type of guy that has got all of his fame through the media, and drawing cartoons, and cutting heads off, and this and that. His performances in the ring to me, and I’m just saying as a neutral person not a Klitschko person—fighting a Valuev, Audley Harrison, Monte Barrett who Wladimir had knocked out nine years earlier and he was even knocked down in that fight. He’s become famous for his media hype more so than his actions. He’s never had an impressive fight over a credible opponent. This gives him the opportunity to scream and holler, but it’s not that Wladimir has canceled the fight. He said we’ll fight July 2 but I’m going to go ahead and fight in between and stay busy.”
On whether he is disappointed as a fan that a fight between Wladimir Klitschko and David Haye is not happening:
“Yes I am. I think it should happen and I would personally have loved for it to happen somewhere in between there rather than going that long. I respect David’s opinion and I cannot go against Wladimir, not just because I’m with him but because the man just as a history, he and his brother and really if you look at it the boxing world with David Haye, of just BS’ing the public. So he said I’m not going to wait because at the last minute he is liable to come up and pull out again because he’s not getting the rights to a particular neighborhood or something. So he said I’m going to go ahead and fight and stay busy because I don’t know what David’s going to do and I am willing to fight July 2 and that’s it. I respect everybody, but I think history will show that Wladimir Klitschko has accomplished much more in his career than David has, other than drawing cartoons and cutting out pictures.”
His views on David Haye’s claim that he will retire in October of this year:
“BS. No, that’s just talk. All he is. is talk, hype, comments, and things of that nature. It’s not even worth entertaining the thought to even think about.”
On whether he believes Ruslan Chagaev poses a serious threat to David Haye:
“Nope. I spoke to Wladimir about it. Wladimir said the same thing, he said no. I don’t know, I didn’t see Chagaev’s last fight but evidently it was not that impressive and you look at the fact Wladimir beat Chagaev with just one good shoulder, his right shoulder. He says he cannot see Chagaev being a threat, and it’s not only just that. I can’t see that as a fight that anybody is going to be excited about because neither Chagaev nor Haye did anything in the last—in their careers , really if you look at it, to get the fans excited about.”
On whether he is happy that Wladimir’s fight with Dereck Chisora is back on or whether he views it as a necessary risk:
“I think it’s a necessary risk because Wladimir is an honorable person. He feels that based on him having the injury and not Chisora, he owes it to him because Chisora has nowhere to go. He would be just left out and he feels he owes this man that fight. If it was up to me, I would say, ‘No, let’s wait and fight David Haye’. But I know Wladimir. He said, ‘No, we owe this fight to this man. He was supposed to be in this fight and it’s not his fault and that’s just the way Wladimir is. So we’ll have to go, but I think he’s a very tough guy and a dangerous risk. Wladimir himself feels that after listening to me, and he respects my judgment, but he feels that he should fight Chisora, especially with the long time. He just does not want to wait that long in between fights and he’s been looking at the records and discusses often with me the great heavyweight fighters like Tyson and Ali. All of those guys were fighters who fought regularly and that’s what he wants to do because he’s going to fight a couple of more years, and he wants to get all the fights he can in and give everyone a chance to fight him, and fighting once or twice a year is not what he wants to do for the next few years.”
“Well it’s very frustrating for me as an observer just reading and watching. I spoke to Wladimir. I have not spoken to David naturally, but from Wladimir’s viewpoint this is what happened: they had completed negotiations for a fight which he was hopeful was going to be April 2. Based on I guess the Sky TV scheduling they would not two pay-per-view fights in April because they had the Amir Khan fight. They moved the fight back all the way to July and Wladimir said that was fine and he agreed to it, but he didn’t want to go that long without having a fight, because he wants to get as many fights as he can in during this last stage of his career. So he decided that he wanted to go ahead and take the fight and finish his commitment, which he felt he was obligated to do, with Chisora. So he wanted to do that fight for the 30th. That was all signed and all of a sudden I read when David went berserk.
I spoke to Wladimir about it. I understand David’s viewpoint as well as Wladimir’s, and Wladimir’s point was, ‘It’s just hard for me to just sit and wait for a July 2nd fight because I really don’t have that much faith in Haye’s commitment because he once pulled out of a fight just two weeks or ten days or whatever before a fight. He just pulled out. There was no injury, that’s bull****. Then he negotiates with my brother for a fight, and at the same time they were getting ready to finalize the contract they found out he had been negotiating at the same time for Valuev. Rather than wait a whole year, I decided to just take a fight in April and then I’ll go ahead and fulfill that obligation in July. But I’m not surprised and upset with David’s reaction. I just can’t trust or depend on him with his past record with me and my brother, so I want to take this fight and I’ll still be prepared to fight July 2. So that’s where it stands’.
Now I hear Adamek is coming into the picture and whatever, but there is a lot of confusion. Anything dealing with David Haye is going to be a lot of problems like that. David Haye is a businessman more so than a boxer. That’s the best I can say. I respect him for doing what he’s doing, but I also have to respect Wladimir because Wladimir is a fighter and he wants to fight and he feels that he should fight two to three times a year minimum and that’s what he says he’s going to do. He doesn’t see a problem with fighting in July. That’s David’s situation. So I respect both of them and whatever happens, happens.”
His views on David Haye’s claim that people will say “Why didn’t you fight David Haye” when Wladimir retires:
“I think it will be just the opposite. David Haye has pulled out of a fight totally, and what’s interesting is Wladimir himself had a bad, bad shoulder injury. The fact that he had to have two operations on that same shoulder and he was willing to fight David Haye and under those conditions, and he still went through with a fight when David pulled out and he went on and fought Chagaev. Basically he had to throw the right hand, right hand, because he couldn’t even use his left hook effectively in that fight and he had to go through the two surgeries for that shoulder. Out of his whole career, amateur and professional, which goes back I guess twenty-one years now, he’s only had to pull out of one fight and I was one of the main reasons that he pulled out of this one. I said you cannot go into a fight with this type of injury because it could happen right in the middle of the second round or something and you can end up where you can’t move.
Nevertheless, he does not have the faith that David will be there. It’s not like he canceled the fight. He just said we’ll fight July 2, but I’m going to have a fight April 30 against Chisora because that’s what I should as an honorable fighter and a champion. So he wants to fulfill his commitment since it’s going to take so long in between these fights, and that gave David the excuse to go screaming and hollering. I mean look at his track record. Wladimir’s never ran from anyone, he’s damn sure not running from David Haye. But David Haye is the type of guy that has got all of his fame through the media, and drawing cartoons, and cutting heads off, and this and that. His performances in the ring to me, and I’m just saying as a neutral person not a Klitschko person—fighting a Valuev, Audley Harrison, Monte Barrett who Wladimir had knocked out nine years earlier and he was even knocked down in that fight. He’s become famous for his media hype more so than his actions. He’s never had an impressive fight over a credible opponent. This gives him the opportunity to scream and holler, but it’s not that Wladimir has canceled the fight. He said we’ll fight July 2 but I’m going to go ahead and fight in between and stay busy.”
On whether he is disappointed as a fan that a fight between Wladimir Klitschko and David Haye is not happening:
“Yes I am. I think it should happen and I would personally have loved for it to happen somewhere in between there rather than going that long. I respect David’s opinion and I cannot go against Wladimir, not just because I’m with him but because the man just as a history, he and his brother and really if you look at it the boxing world with David Haye, of just BS’ing the public. So he said I’m not going to wait because at the last minute he is liable to come up and pull out again because he’s not getting the rights to a particular neighborhood or something. So he said I’m going to go ahead and fight and stay busy because I don’t know what David’s going to do and I am willing to fight July 2 and that’s it. I respect everybody, but I think history will show that Wladimir Klitschko has accomplished much more in his career than David has, other than drawing cartoons and cutting out pictures.”
His views on David Haye’s claim that he will retire in October of this year:
“BS. No, that’s just talk. All he is. is talk, hype, comments, and things of that nature. It’s not even worth entertaining the thought to even think about.”
On whether he believes Ruslan Chagaev poses a serious threat to David Haye:
“Nope. I spoke to Wladimir about it. Wladimir said the same thing, he said no. I don’t know, I didn’t see Chagaev’s last fight but evidently it was not that impressive and you look at the fact Wladimir beat Chagaev with just one good shoulder, his right shoulder. He says he cannot see Chagaev being a threat, and it’s not only just that. I can’t see that as a fight that anybody is going to be excited about because neither Chagaev nor Haye did anything in the last—in their careers , really if you look at it, to get the fans excited about.”
On whether he is happy that Wladimir’s fight with Dereck Chisora is back on or whether he views it as a necessary risk:
“I think it’s a necessary risk because Wladimir is an honorable person. He feels that based on him having the injury and not Chisora, he owes it to him because Chisora has nowhere to go. He would be just left out and he feels he owes this man that fight. If it was up to me, I would say, ‘No, let’s wait and fight David Haye’. But I know Wladimir. He said, ‘No, we owe this fight to this man. He was supposed to be in this fight and it’s not his fault and that’s just the way Wladimir is. So we’ll have to go, but I think he’s a very tough guy and a dangerous risk. Wladimir himself feels that after listening to me, and he respects my judgment, but he feels that he should fight Chisora, especially with the long time. He just does not want to wait that long in between fights and he’s been looking at the records and discusses often with me the great heavyweight fighters like Tyson and Ali. All of those guys were fighters who fought regularly and that’s what he wants to do because he’s going to fight a couple of more years, and he wants to get all the fights he can in and give everyone a chance to fight him, and fighting once or twice a year is not what he wants to do for the next few years.”
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