He needed to take a few risks early on, with Wlad moving forward. Hold his ground, slip the jab (easier said then done, of course) as Wlad moved in and counter with a few stinging shots, to get Wlad's attention. He did it ( a bit) in the last round, held his ground and slipped the jab and fired back but by then it was way, way too late.dbf wrote:Conclusions
All the talk of the gameplan etc was nonsense, deep down Haye believed he would knock out Wladimir and that is never a good mindset. There needed to be a plan B and I don't think he showed versatility.
He moved away, backed off and with Wlad easily matching him for speed at that range After 2 rounds of watching Haye wing and Wlad simply step back, a couple of paces, I knew then it didn't look good.
Fight to get the centre of the ring, that was the key, but he gave that to Wlad, by simply moving away.
Credit to Wlad, he couldn't really get his jab going until late on, but he stuck to it, forced the fight and dictated the range and usually those guys win the fight.
Staying in firing range or ' in the pocket ', sure Haye ran the risk of getting hit and possibly dropped etc...but he would have done a lot more damage had he done that. The Haye of old, would have go for it and that's probably the most disappointing thing, in all honesty. He would have gone for it.