Vitali Klitschko ready to rumble with Briton Haye
DUESSELDORF: Heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko announced on Saturday a much-awaited fight with Briton David Haye for the WBC crown without specifying a date or location.
“I can announce that my next fight will be with David Haye,” Klitschko told a 50,000 crowd at the Esprit Arena immediately after his brother Vladimir knocked out Jean-marc Mormeck to retain his WBO, WBA, IBF and IBO crowns.
Haye, who retired in October, had been wanting to fight Klitschko after losing his WBA belt to Vladimir last July.
He was also involved in a postfight brawl with Dereck Chisora after the former Commonwealth champion had lost his fight to Vitali on Feb 19 on points and is wanted by German police for questioning.
The British boxer said on Twitter: “Vitali has just finally agreed to fight me in a live RTL (television) interview. He told me I will be his next fight. Let’s get ready to rumble.”
The Klitschkos twice had fights with Haye called off in the past years after they failed to agree on the details for a unification fight before the ‘Hayemaker’ lost to Vladimir in July 2011.
Should the fight go ahead it could be 40-year-old Vitali’s last after announcing before taking on Chisora that he planned to fight “a couples of times more” before retiring.
Haye, who turned heavyweight in 2008 after a cruiserweight career that started in 2002, could face problems fighting in Germany – the Ukrainian brothers’ base – after leaving the country following the brawl with Chisora, who was briefly detained and questioned by police. Haye, 31, had been attending the bout and news conference as a television pundit and exchanged comments with Klitschko’s manager Bernd Boente and Chisora.
Chisora got up to confront him and the pair traded blows with Haye’s manager Adam Booth suffering a cut head.
Haye, who has won 25 fights and lost two, said he fled Germany due to the death threats he received from Chisora before adding he would “happily assist the boxing authorities with any investigation they wish to launch”.