David Haye only focused on John Ruiz, says trainer

Haye will fight Ruiz, the mandatory challenger, at Manchester's MEN Arena on April 3 in his first defence of the belt he won from Nikolai Valuev last November.

The 29-year-old Londoner has long-term plans to unite the heavyweight division by taking on champion brothers Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko, who hold the WBC, WBO and IBF titles between them.

But first he must overcome Ruiz - a former two-time WBA world champion himself - and Haye's trainer Adam Booth is confident there is no danger of his man underestimating the experienced American.

"David and I both know that this fight with Ruiz is a massive banana skin in David's plans of becoming a long-term heavyweight champion and unifying the titles," Booth said.

"Looking beyond John Ruiz would probably be the biggest mistake that we could ever make and we are certainly not going to do that.

"John Ruiz has been at world level for a long, long time and he is the master at making talented fighters look less than ordinary."

Having initially won it in 2001 and again in 2004, 38-year-old Ruiz (44-8-1, 30 KOs) lost his WBA crown to Valuev in 2005 and was paid last year to stand aside and allow Haye the chance for a shot at the belt.

The Las Vegas-based veteran now has his opportunity to complete a hat-trick of world titles and Haye (23-1, 21 KOs) believes he will have to step up another gear from his victory over Valuev to defeat Ruiz this spring.

"This fight is a completely different animal compared to the Valuev fight," Haye said.
"He's the same size than me, he's a lot faster than my prior opponent and I'm looking at boxing a completely different fight this time round.

"I think what I did against Valuev wouldn't really be enough against Ruiz.

"He's a pressure fighter and he's not going to try and out-box me - he'd be mad to try and do that.

"I expect him to do what he does in most of his fights and that is get close, try and rough me up, work my body, try and slow me down and try and get me in the trenches.

"I expect him to come with a solid game-plan, but I feel that no matter what he brings to the table, I will find some way to counter-act that and not only beat him, but beat him spectacularly and knock him out."