Heavyweight contender Monte Barrett, the man who stepped in the ring with both David Haye and WBA heavyweight champion Nikolai Valuev, is picking the 7'2 Russian giant to retain his title on Saturday night in Germany. Valuev stopped Barrett in eleven rounds, while Haye put him away in five.

“I think David Haye has more tenacity,” said Barrett to Tris Dixon of British magazine Boxing News . “But I think Valuev will win the fight because he’s good at what he does. I don’t know if Valev can stop David but I know he can win the fight. David’s been doing what he has to do. He’s got a big mouth. The most quiet he’s been was since he fought me but I think he’s making the same mistake I made when I fought him. He’s getting caught up in the hype.”

The big factor with Haye is his suspect chin. Barrett was able to knock him down and says the British fighter was saved by a hometown ref who paid no attention to the knockdown. He says Haye is all about the pre-fight hype.

“It took him 45 seconds to get up from that knockdown,” Barrett said. “He’s just so much hype that instead of taking the [Valuev] fight seriously and landing a huge right hand and winning the fight he’s thinking about the hype.”

As far as the power, Barrett says neither fighter is heavy handed. Barrett compared Haye's speed and power to the level of Wladimir Klitschko. He does think Haye stands a chance to replicate the performance by Ruslan Chagaev, who is the only man to beat Valuev.

“Chagaev countered him and Haye’s as fast as Chagaev. I don’t know if Haye has the power to knock Valuev out but anybody over 200lbs can get lucky. He has power. He’s not heavy-handed, he just has a lot of pop in his punch. When he hit me it reminded me of Wladimir Klitschko. He has deceptive speed about his power and Klitschko has the same type of power in his punches. Valuev is not heavy handed at all," Barrett said.


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