Chisora: Haye will have his hand-speed for one round, then he’ll be blowing out of his backside

By Sean McDaniel: Dereck Chisora (15-3, 9 KO’s) figures former WBA heavyweight champion David Haye (25-2, 23 KO’s) will only be able to maintain his fast hand speed or one round, and will be gassing out shortly after that in tonight’s fight.

Chisora is perhaps been watching Haye’s loss to Carl Thompson in 2004 where Haye faded badly after failing to get an early knockout and was eventually halted in the 5th round by the 40-year-old Thompson.

Chisora told the BBC Sport “He’s got speed for one round. By round four, he’ll be blowing out of his backside.”

Haye doesn’t agree with that assessment at all, saying “He [Chisora] gets blasted out real fast.”

Haye has been predicting a knockout in the 1st or 2nd rounds. Haye’s confidence in an early KO stems partly from his knockdown of Chisora in their brief fistfight last February at the Chisora-Vitali Klitschko post fight press conference. After Chisora confronted him by walking up to him in the crowd, Haye landed a clean right hand followed by several elbow smashes to the head that dropped Chiosra.

Haye claims that while on top of him he observed that Chisora was out cold for several seconds. It’s unclear if Haye is pulling everyone’s leg by saying, but it’s immaterial to tonight’s bout because gloves will be worn, and Haye won’t be allowed to elbow Chisora in the head like he apparently did in their fistfight.

It’s going to be interesting to see if Haye can fight hard for more than one round, because he’s been out of the ring for a year, and that probably is going to hurt his stamina in this fight if it goes into the later rounds. Haye might be better off by taking a big gamble and unloading on Chisora with everything he’s got in the first two rounds.

If Haye can exhaust all of his fuel early on, he might be able to get a stoppage even if Chisora doesn’t go down. If Haye hits Chisora with 15 to 20 consecutive power shots while Chisora’s trying to cover up, the referee might jump in and halt it. We saw that with Joe Calzaghe in his fight against Peter Manfredo Jr in the past.