By William Mackay: British super middleweight and former 2008 Olympic Gold medalist James DeGale (10-8, 8 KO’s) is picking IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (55-3, 49 KO’s) to knockout WBA heavyweight champion David Haye (25-1, 23 Ko’s) on July 2nd when they meet at the Imtech stadium in Hamburg, Germany for their mega- fight.

As quoted by boxingfutures.com, DeGale said “It’s great for boxing and for British boxing, the best two heavyweights in the world colliding, but in Hamburg against one of the Klitschkos, it’s a difficult task ahead. Obviously, I’d like David Haye to go on and unify the division and beat him but I see Klitschko knocking him out late on. I think he’s too athletic, too big and hits far too hard. But as they say it’s heavyweight boxing, all it takes is one punch and David Haye can dig so you never know.”

DeGale is going with the safe pick. It’s a risky bet to pick Haye because his competition has been so god awful since he moved up to heavyweight, and he’s looked so poor in fight against Nikolay Valuev and Audley Harrison, the only two times he faced bigger heavyweights after moving up in weight from the cruiserweight division in 2008. Haye seems to freeze up when facing bigger heavyweights and his work rate drops to a trickle.

Haye was able to barely beat Valuev and was able to stop a scared-looking Harrison last year, but he’ll have a tough time beating Wladimir by throwing only 10 punches per round. That’s a recipe for Haye ending up with what Wladimir calls a “Pizza face” from swelling that Haye’s face will undergo from being hit with 30+ hard jabs per round, possibly more. Wladimir has arguably the best jab in the heavyweight division and it doesn’t take him look to contort the features of his opponent. Haye, at only 6’2”, without much of a reach and no jab to speak of, will be like an even more limited version of Eddie Chambers.

Haye only throws wide power shots and mostly one at a time unless he thinks he’s got his opponent hurt. Wladimir will easily pick off the wide looping shots from Haye and continue to jab him until he’s blind or punch drunk from eating too many jabs. At that point, Wladimir will lower the bomb on Haye by tagging him with a big left hook or right hand to finish him off.