By Allan Fox: Former British boxing great Nigel Benn sees this as a make or break fight for both David Haye and Dereck Chisora with the loser of the fight being pretty much finished in the sport. Benn feels if Haye wins he’s got to do it early before Chisora comes on and starts punishing him like he did against WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko last February.

Benn said to thesun.co.uk “[Chisora is going to] put pressure on him and that will burn out Haye’s energy. So while David has the speed, does he really have the power for all this? Of course, there is every chance he could catch Dereck early but, make no mistake, Chisora is tough. So David has to get in there early.”

Benn was impressed with Chisora’s fight against WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko last February, noting that Chisora never stopped pressuring the huge 6’7″ Vitali through the 12 round bout. Benn feels that few fighters would have been able to do what Chisora did against Vitali by taking all those shots from him but still continuing to press the attack.

As for the loser of tomorrow nights’ fight, Benn says “It’s over.” No doubt it probably is. Haye will have lost his last two fights, and if he can’t even beat a 2nd tier heavyweight like Chisora, then it’s really over. And for Chisora, if he loses the fight, he will have lost four out of his last five bouts. That’s basically journeyman type material. Sure, he could maybe hang around and work his way back up to the top 15, but it will take a long time to get back up there, and again he’ll still likely get exposed if he faces the top guys. Chisora’s time is now. He can’t wait because there is a new crop heavyweights like Tyson Fury, Seth Mitchell and David Price who will likely make Chisora obsolete. The things that Chisora did against a slow and aging heavyweight like Vitali isn’t something he’ll be able to do against more mobile heavyweights like Fury or Price.

As for Haye, a loss in this fight will leave him to where he would have to stick around and work his way up to a title fight rather than maybe getting lucky and landing a fight against Vitali by beating Chisora. Haye has no intention of fighting no named opponents for little money just to eventually get a title shot against one of the champions. Haye will obviously elect to retire if he loses to Chisora rather than sticking around and having to slowly earn a title shot by facing one heavyweight contender after another to try and get another world title shot.