Haye, Klitschko reach point of no return

In another life, David Haye may have been a chess grandmaster. From the moment in 2008 when he decided to vacate the cruiserweight title, he planned, plotted and schemed for this moment, to land a mega payday against a man widely regarded as the finest heavyweight of his generation.

He spent the better part of the last three years torturing and tormenting the heavyweight division's flagship fighters, World Boxing Organization/International Boxing Federation champion Wladimir Klitschko and his older brother, World Boxing Council champ Vitali Klitschko. Haye so riled Wladimir Klitschko with his trash talk and a t-shirt he wore depicting him standing over the bodies with decapitated heads of the brothers that the normally reserved and stoic Wladimir Klitschko took to YouTube to angrily call him out.

Haye maneuvered himself brilliantly. Knowing there were questions about whether he was a legitimate heavyweight, he made his debut against veteran Monte Barrett. Haye won by fifth-round knockout, two rounds quicker than Wladimir Klitschko had done a few years earlier.

When there were doubts whether he could compete with a truly big man, he landed a bout with 7-foot, 320-pound Nikolai Valuev and beat him for the WBA belt. And when critics said he was an unknown who couldn't draw, he took on Audley Harrison, a lightly regarded opponent who was on the backstretch of a disappointing career, and sold out the MEN Arena in Manchester, England, turning it into a mega-event in the United Kingdom.

Haye has one final move left to play before getting the checkmate and, alas, that will be the most difficult to carry out.

He will meet Wladimir Klitschko for three of the division's four major belts on Saturday in Hamburg, Germany – shown live in the U.S. on HBO beginning at 4:45 p.m. Eastern – in what will be the most significant and difficult challenge of his life.

Haye, who is 25-1 with 23 knockouts, could fight the perfect strategic fight and still lose. That's how talented Klitschko is. He's a sinewy 6-feet-6, 242-pounder with the grace of a dancer and the power and brute force of a blitzing linebacker. He's got nearly twice as many knockouts (49) as Haye has had fights.

Haye is clearly a gifted fighter – You don't collect three of the four cruiserweight belts, as Haye did, without being able to fight – and he would be an exceptionally popular champion were he to win.

He's a colorful, charismatic and generally accessible man who has the ability to charm many and infuriate the rest. He'll make many watch to root him on and then will have others screaming at the television demanding his head.

But though he holds a belt, in the fractured world of boxing, simply being a title-holder means little because the sanctioning bodies dole them out like they're trinkets in a Cracker Jack box. Haye is a champion, but Klitschko is the champion. Haye would never have gone through so much trouble to land a Klitschko fight if he didn't believe that Klitschko was the division's kingpin.

To win, he'll need to negate Klitschko's punishing jab, which no man has ever successfully done for any length of time. Klitschko's jab might be the division's best since the prime of the great Larry Holmes. It's quick and it's powerful and it wins a lot of fights for him by itself.

Haye's best bet will be to dictate the tempo. When Klitschko wants to fight, Haye should slow the pace, clinching and mauling with him on the inside. And when Klitschko needs a rest, Haye needs to pick up the pace and force him to engage. Klitschko's confidence is fragile and Haye needs to land with authority early to allow self doubt to creep into the champion's mind. Above all, if he could find a way to make Klitschko back up, he'll be on his way to winning.

It's possible to do, but Haye is likely to discover that it was much easier to taunt and harass Klitschko than it is to box him.

Haye, who could make upwards of $15 million for the bout, deserves a massive amount of credit for landing the bout and stirring interest in what has been a moribund heavyweight division. Klitschko-Haye is the biggest fight in the division since Lennox Lewis destroyed Tyson in 2002, and it's probably the most significant heavyweight bout among men in their primes since Lewis beat Evander Holyfield in Las Vegas in 1999.

The question now is whether Haye can back up his words. The campaign will only truly have been a success if he convinces the public of his authenticity and exits the ring on Saturday with the WBA, WBO and IBF belts slung over his shoulders.

A win over Wladimir Klitschko would almost certainly lead to an even more significant fight in early 2012 with Vitali Klitschko, assuming Vitali Klitschko retains his title in September when he meets Tomasz Adamek in Poland.

If Haye proves up to the task, the heavyweight division will suddenly become extraordinarily interesting.