By Chris Williams: Although many people are predicting that David Haye (22-1, 21 KOs) will have his best shot of winning by an early knockout from the 1st to the 3rd round against International Boxing Federation/World Boxing Federation heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (52-3, 46 KOs), I have a feeling that Wladimir is going to surprise more than a few people by bombarding Haye with big shots and taking him out in the 1st round.

I don’t why, but I just have a feeling that Emanuel Steward is going to come up with a strategy that will be centered around Wladimir taking advantage of Haye’s wide style of fighting in the early going by dropping a bomb on Haye and flattening him in the 1st.

Steward knows that Haye has a lot of things in common with Ricky Hatton with his slugging style of fighting in the first three rounds of his fight, and he’ll no doubt have Wladimir ready to test Haye with left hooks and right hands. For most fighters, they could possibly take one of Wladimir’s big shots unless it was right on the button.

However, with Haye’s fragile chin, even a glancing blow from Wladimir will be enough to stun Haye and wobble him. Believe me, if Wladimir gets Haye in trouble, he’s not going to let the opportunity pass like he did against Samuel Peter in the 12th round of their bout in 2005.

The problem for Haye is that his whole aggressive style of fighting is attuned to fighting smaller, weaker cruiserweights that he’s able to fight recklessly against without taking shots that are big enough in most cases to hurt Haye.

However, with the much bigger and stronger Wladimir, who weighs 45 pounds more than the typical cruiserweight, Haye is going to be getting hit with some monstrous shots in this fight. Right now, Haye seems to have bought his own hype and sees his prior work as a cruiserweight as evidence that he’ll be able to do the same thing against heavyweights.

Normal fighters, like mini scientists, would want to test out their ability on a series of good heavyweights to see if they honestly do have the skills to compete against a quality heavyweight like Wladimir. Not Haye, though.

In his urgency to get a big payday against Wladimir, Haye skipped right over the test phase of his skills and instead took on a journeyman heavyweight who in now ways compares to Wladimir at all in size, power or ability.

However, Haye took the easy win over Monte Barrett and used this faulty evidence as proof that he was good enough to beat Wladimir. In a way, it’s kind of like what Ricky Hatton did with his win over Paulie Malignaggi. You get a win over an inferior fighter and then assume that translates into you being able to beat a good heavyweight.

Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way, and Haye is going to find out early that he doesn’t have the chin, size or the ability to compete with Wladimir, even for a little while. Now Haye has pissed Wladimir off royally with his t-shirt gimmick, which Haye had a t-shirt put together showing him holding up the decapitated heads of Wladimir and his brother Vitali Klitschko.

Haye says that he did it for a couple of reasons, saying that it will make Wladimir angry so that he’ll want to trade shots with him early in the fight, and also to sell tickets to the fight. Well, Haye has accomplished the second goal, because the fight is already a sellout, and I think he probably accomplished the first goal as well by angering Wladimir enough so that he’ll want to slug it out with Haye early in the fight.

This would work for Haye if he was fighting Enzo Maccarinelli or some other cruiserweight, but not a fighter with the power that Wladimir has. Just on size alone, Wladimir will land first because of Haye’s shorter arms and lack of height.

This means that Haye is very likely going to get hit with something huge in the 1st round, a type of punch that he’s never been hit before because of his lack of experience and one that Haye’s glass chin was never meant to take.

As things stand, I see Wladimir destroying Haye either in the first or second minute of the 1st round. I don’t see Haye making it to the third minute, because he will have been hit with something big by then and dropped to the canvas.