David Haye urges 'coward' Wladimir Klitschko to see sense

David Haye is in no doubt Wladimir Klitschko is running scared - but still hopes his heavy- weight world champion rival will "see sense" and get their so-called fight of the century on this summer.

Haye, the WBA champion, has been engaged in protracted negotiations with Ukrainian Klitschko, who holds the IBF and WBO titles and is regarded as the world's best heavyweight, to get a unification showdown set for the summer of 2011. However, it was announced this week that Klitschko will honour his agreement to fight Haye's fellow Londoner Dereck Chisora on April 30 after a stomach injury forced the champion to pull out of their proposed clash last month, which in turns means Haye will now instead take on mandatory challenger Ruslan Chagaev of Uzbekistan.

Haye branded Klitschko a "coward" and, despite maintaining he will stick to his pledge to retire when he turns 31 in October, insists even now he would be open to a unification bout. Haye said: "Fight fans just want to see the best against the best - if only it was that simple.

"For this fight, I thought we had gotten over all of the obstacles, I even renegotiated my own current promoters contract to allow the Klitschkos to get what they wanted out of the fight.

"They wanted to fight in Germany, I said 'okay'. We made sure our mandatory challenger could be put on the backburner, had agreements from all the TV networks.

"Then all of sudden he announces he is fighting, knowing I have to then fight Chagaev. To then fight me after is impossible - it is a shame he has now shown his true colours."