LONDON -- After convincingly winning his first heavyweight fight, David Haye looked Vitaly Klitschko in the eye -- or rather, chin -- and said his second could well be for the world title.
Standing side-by-side with the 6-foot-7 WBC champion after his five-round TKO over Monte Barrett on Sunday, the 6-foot-3) Haye said his performance -- which included five knockdowns -- should convince a skeptical boxing world that he is ready for the biggest prize.
"I will end up victorious. I'm positive about that," Haye said in a postfight TV interview. "I don't mind if it is (against) Wladimir or Vitaly. He and his brother are the best in the world. That's why I want to fight these guys. It will be a huge fight so let's make it happen."
Klitschko was happy to go along.
"I was very impressed with the fight," he said of Haye's victory against Barrett, who was also put down five times by his brother, Wladimir, in another of his seven losses. "Next year it will be a great fight in Britain or Germany, in a big stadium."
Before then, Klitschko pointed out, both he and his brother are scheduled to defend their titles against other fighters. So Haye will have to wait and maybe take on another top-10 ranked heavyweight as part of his conditioning.
"Now I'm looking forward to going out and fighting for the heavyweight championship of the world," Haye said later in the evening. "If that's next, then that's what I'll have. If not, if it is delayed for a while for some reason, then I'll get another fight in."
By taking a ringside view of Haye's undoubted speed, Klitschko undoubtedly also noticed how easily Barrett was able to hit Haye and lure him into a toe-to-toe punching contest.
Although the fight ended with 1 minute, 20 seconds to go of Round 5, the two fighters regularly hit the canvas. Barrett even went down before Haye entered the ring by mistiming his entrance leap over the top rope, clipping it with his leg and finishing on knees.
Barrett went down five more times under the weight of Haye's punches and had the British fighter down twice. Although referee Richie Davies ruled they were either slips or illegal pushes, even Haye admitted one was a genuine knockdown.
While the American goes away to consider whether to carry on after failing against Wladimir Klitschko, Hasim Rahman, Nikolai Valuev and now Haye, the British fighter who unified the cruiserweight world titles by knocking out Enzo Maccarinelli in March sees a clear route to heavyweight glory.
"I'm the No. 1 cruiserweight in the world. Now I want to clean up the heavyweight division," he said. "To do that I need to get past the Klitschko brothers, hopefully beat one of the Klitschko brothers and then the other. Beat the two Klitschkos next year, that's my plan."
Haye is not concerned that, at 215 pounds he might not be heavy enough to take on Klitschko, who regular weighs in at 250.
"I'm not going to fall into the trap of bulking up for the sake of it," he said. "It's all about speed. I'm not going to have a wrestling match and try and lift him up."
"I know he's a giant," he said of Vitaly Klitschko. "I think I can slay the giant."
