Klitschko cancels heavyweight bout again with Chisora
Saul Alvarez wins WBC light-middleweight title
LONDON // David Haye, Britain's WBA heavyweight champion, and Ukraine's WBO, IBO and IBF champion Wladimir Klitschko, have agreed to fight in Germany this summer, their respective managers said yesterday.
"We have a deal," Adam Booth, Haye's manager and trainer, told Sky Sports. "We're happy with it, they're happy with it. They didn't want to come to the UK for a couple of reasons. David is happy to go anywhere to fight Wladimir ... he doesn't care if it's in his back garden. David is raring to go."
"The most likely date is July 2 in Germany, but it may be a week earlier on June 25. We were always confident that this fight would happen."
A Haye-Wladimir Klitschko clash has been on the cards for two years but twice the two sides failed to finalise a deal after disagreeing on how to split revenues.
"The fight is 99 per cent sealed," Bernd Boente, Klitschko's manager, told Bild newspaper. "We have June 25 and July 2 as possible dates."
With no possibility of a single fighter holding all belts - Vitaly Klitschko holds the WBC belt and the brothers have stated they are not going to fight each other - the Haye fight was long considered the one bout that could establish the Klitschkos as the undisputed champions after dominating their sport in the past years.
"It's the fight that the world has been begging to see," Haye told the BBC yesterday. "Now it seems like the path is clear for a mega extravaganza ... I can't wait to get in there and show I'm the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world."
Haye had pulled out of a scheduled fight with Wladimir in 2009, citing an injury, although it was more a case of the two sides and their promoters failing to reach a deal.
A Haye-Vitaly Klitschko match also failed to materialise some months later.
On Saturday, Wladimir called off his April 30 fight against Dereck Chisora, Britain's Commonwealth champion, after failing to recover in time from an injury sustained in December.
The fight against Chisora was originally scheduled for December but was postponed when Klitschko tore an abdominal muscle.
