Wladimir Klitschko’s camp scrambled to find a short-notice replacement for his heavyweight title defense after David Haye pulled out of the June 20th bout. Evidently, HBO was not stoked about the change to Ruslan Chagaev.
According to an HBO press release: “The previously announced HBO Sports presentation World Championship Boxing: Wladimir Klitschko vs. David Haye, scheduled for Saturday, June 20, has been cancelled. No boxing will air on HBO that day.”
This whole fight scenario has played out strangely. First, Chagaev failed a physical on May 30th and had to pull out of his fight with Nikolai Valuev. Suddenly, Wladimir Klitschko needs an opponent and Chagaev is healthy again. We are still left with two of the top five heavyweights in the world and HBO wants no part of it.
Good for HBO. Haye vs Klitschko had bad blood and would have most certainly have ended in a knockout. Chagaev vs Klitschko smells a lot like Sultan Ibragimov vs Wladimir Klitschko. That fight did not have a pleasant aroma. I think it’s for the best that HBO chooses not to televise this fight. Wladimir made the best of a bad situation by making the Chagaev fight but it is certainly not of the “made for TV” variety.
