David Haye is The Man and the Klitschkos have nowhere else to go -- The Guardian

By Kevin Mitchell, Guardian.co.uk

We must all now hope that Adam Booth is as good a negotiator as he is a ring strategist. It would be a missed opportunity almost as criminal as the aborted Pacquiao-Mayweather fiasco if David Haye's next fight is not against Wladimir Klitschko.

Haye's trainer and manager again got the tactics right against poor John Ruiz in Manchester on Saturday night, as the WBA champion stayed at range to turn the American challenger's face into putty.

Booth will need similar resolve when he sits down with his promotional partners Sauerland Event and Golden Boy Promotions to get Haye out of his mandated rematch with Nikolai Valuev so he can get his hands on Klitschko. That might be the easy part.

If Valuev takes step-aside money (as Ruiz did so Haye could fight Valuev last November), Booth then has to convince Wladimir to come to Wembley in the autumn to put his WBO and IBF titles on the line with Haye's belt.

This is going to be tricky. Klitschko knows that if he loses, Haye would then have three belts to use as negotiating chips in talks with his brother, Vitali, who owns the WBC version. That fight, outdoors somewhere in Europe, would be as big as it gets. Even American television would be on board, mainly because they have nothing credible to offer fans there in the heavyweight division.

People here still worry about American TV. I'm not sure why. Sure, it's great for fighters to go to Las Vegas for the buzz and the extra money. But this is where the clout is now, especially in the sport's premier division. And the man who is creating more buzz than any other big man in the world is Haye.

WHAT A PERFORMANCE

Haye was terrific on Saturday night. Not perfect, but electrifying.

He is creating the sort of excitement Nigel Benn did, a charismatic big hitter with a slightly unreliable chin who loves to entertain.

What more could fight fans in this country ask for: a British world heavyweight champion who throws bombs and only just gets out of the way of the return traffic – but not always.

As Booth said afterwards, "I'm always unhappy with him when he gets hit. We knew that was down to lack of sparring. The only way to work on your defence is to have people punching at you. So we just worked on his punch conditioning, so he could work hard for 12 rounds. This will make him a better fighter, because he had to come through some rough times."

Haye got cut in sparring four-and-a-half weeks before the fight, yet was still confident enough in his own talent to go through with the Ruiz fight. It's that sort of arrogance champions are made of.

Haye looks increasingly comfortable in that role. He knows he is The Man. He knows the Klitschkos have nowhere else to go.

To get these fights for Haye, Booth will have to work on the Klitschkos' sense of honour, because they are both proud men. He could do worse than quote them an old Russian saying that is familiar to these sons of a former Soviet air force colonel: "It is a bad soldier who does not dream to be a general."

The Klitschkos are good soldiers. Some of their recent opponents, though, have been no more than cardboard targets on a firing range.

HOW GOOD IS GEORGE GROVES?

On a quality undercard, the most impressive fighter of the night after Haye was the new Commonwealth super-middleweight champion George Groves.

He looked sensational in stopping the tough old champion Charles Adamu – and in just his eighth fight. Groves still hasn't been past eight rounds.

What was impressive was the 22-year-old puncher's confidence. He showed no nerves at all as he threw wicked right hands behind a demoralising jab and moved around the ring as if it were his own living room, a fighter comfortable in his environment.

That right hand looked a lot like Haye's and it is clear the heavyweight champion is having a good influence on a new champion who can claim to be the best young fighter in the country.

POOR OLD AMERICA

It is not nice to see the business struggling across the pond – especially with farcical contests such as Bernard Hopkins's apparently ugly 12-round win over Roy Jones Jnr on Saturday night.

I didn't watch it and don't want to. But reports suggest it was an ill-tempered affair between two old dogs scrapping over a bone nobody cares about. And they put it on pay-per-view! I can't wait to see the numbers.

This Saturday the farce continues when Evander Holyfield fights Frans Botha. That's the same Botha Lennox Lewis beat in London 10 years ago, the same Holyfield who lost to Lewis in 1999... and to John Ruiz in 2001.

It doesn't get much sadder.

STAT OF THE WEEK, MONTH, YEAR

Philadelphia, once the blue-collar home of the American fight game, now has more MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) fights than boxing matches.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK, MONTH, YEAR

Lou DiBella on the state of the game: "MMA didn't take boxing and put it in the shape that it's in, we did! Sometimes I'm the first to mention MMA to other promoters and they say, 'Shut your mouth,' and they are right. We have to worry about our own sport. We have to make sure we are providing compelling entertainment. In our sport, we shove shit down people's throats, and they are supposed to be interested in it?"

Source: guardian.co.uk