Steward: Haye Doesn't Have Any Guts!

Emanuel Steward, trainer of Wladimir Klitschko. was recently interviewed on "On The Ropes Boxing Radio" and talked about Cotto, Wladimir Klitschko and his future potential fights with Povetkin, and Haye, and other matters. Here's is what he said in regard to Wladimir:


On how Cotto compares to guys like Wladimir Klitschko and Lennox Lewis in terms of having the ability to bounce back from the low point in his career in order to still go on to accomplish great things:
“I would say so, but one of the things—yes is your answer—but one of the things that’s very tough for Miguel is he’s in a super, super talented division. I should say divisions, which means when you’re fighting against a super star, almost all Hall of Fame future fighters, and you’re fighting them on a consistent basis, it’s very difficult. Lennox did not have that many really super talented fighters at that time. There were good guys, but not on the level that Miguel has and he’s right there in between that 147 and 154 which is only seven pounds. So the fights that we can make with him would possibly be with Paul Williams, and maybe the Mayweathers and Pacquiao, Cintron, Angulo—I mean, there’s lots of difficult fights where it may not be that easy for him to be so dominating, but I think he’s in a great position now to be right in the mix and very respected as compared to where he’s been the last two or three years with the very tough fights that he’s had and hasn’t had a decisive victory over any of the elite fighters so to say. Just closely getting by with Clottey and Mosley, then the Margarito fight, even the Zab Judah fight was a very brutal tough fight. All of those fights were very physically tough fights that he suffered a lot of punishment in, so he’s an amazing person just to see him training the way he is with the enthusiasm looking like a young kid.”

His views on the recent news that David Haye ignored a 50-50 offer with no future options from the Klitschko Camp:
“I don’t think they will ever get that little puppy David Haye to come out from under the bed. He’s going to let his manager stay out there and lock all of the doors and protect him. I don’t think we’ll ever see David Haye fight. We may see him draw some more cartoon sketches and cut them up and do stuff like that, but I can’t understand how a guy can claim that he’s even a solid heavyweight, let alone hold a belt, and let a man talk to you the way Wladimir’s spoken about him or I’ve spoken about him. He has had no response and Wladimir is putting I think about three titles on the line plus the Ring title, and doing everything—and he still won’t even sit down and even talk about it. I personally don’t think that David Haye has any guts at all when it comes down to fighting the Klitschkos and he can’t find all these excuses about money when the man is willing to put all of his titles on the line and do a 50-50 share right down the middle with you. And it’s the only big fight out there in boxing in the heavyweight division that people want to see, and really, the biggest fight in boxing outside of Mayweather and Pacquiao. With all of that interest that he created with his mouth, never did he do anything with his fists, and still to be in that position that makes him look like a genius if he took the fight because without doing anything, just running around and bragging and hassling and bad-mouthing the Klitschkos—he has worked himself into a great position to make possibly up to, I don’t know, maybe twenty or thirty million dollars. Then to walk away from it, the only way I can look at it is he doesn’t have any guts.”


On a potential fight between Wladimir Klitschko and Alexander Povetkin:
“I think that with Teddy training him, I think he will improve and he’s a good solid fighter. He has a good solid amateur apprenticeship behind him just like Wladimir, but Wladimir is just such an exceptional fighter that I just can’t see Povetkin or anyone beat Wladimir the way he’s fighting now at the top of his game. At least in Povetkin, he is a solid balanced type fighter who is technically very sound, but he just doesn’t have that extra super punch, or extra craftiness, or extra speed, or that little extra something that it would take to be a real big serious threat to Wladimir, but it would be a very interesting fight between two Gold Medal winners in the Olympics and everything. The big fight is really Haye, but Wladimir is doing what he should do. He said, ‘I’m going to stay busy, and until Haye wants to come away from under the bed, I’m going to just go out and fight whoever I have to fight’. Povetkin is a guy, he’ll fight Povetkin, it will be a very interesting fight still but I just can’t see right now anyone in the heavyweight division really beating Wladimir at this point at time. Povetkin is probably about the best solid challenge out there next to David Haye, and maybe the only challenge because David Haye I don’t think wants to get involved in any of this, anyway. So it’s a fight Wladimir has to take to stay busy and to maintain and keep his IBF title, which he considers all of his belts very precious and he’s never taken the attitude of ‘Oh I can just give up a belt’ or ‘It doesn’t mean anything, I’m bigger than the belt’. Those belts mean a lot to him, even though sometimes I question him, but he says they mean a lot to him and he wants to keep all of his belts so that’s it. I hope it takes place in September or October.”


On whether he believes we will ever see a fight between Wladimir Klitschko and David Haye:
“I don’t think so, with the kind of money and the public attacks he’s undergoing and everything else, I don’t think that David Haye will ever fight Wladimir. I mean you can’t give him any more. The public has demanded the fight. You, David, created it and still after getting the kind of money—it’s not like he even came back talking about even more money. He doesn’t want to talk, period, anymore. He’s got laryngitis now, but I don’t think we’ll ever see that fight.”

Here is a video of some of the interview about Wladimir Klitschko: