DAVID Haye and Audley Harrison clash in Manchester tomorrow night in the biggest British boxing bout in years - but will it be much of a fight?

On paper, a battle between destructive WBA heavyweight champ Haye and big-talking European boss Harrison is a mismatch akin to pitting a rottweiler against a poodle.

Two-weight world champion Haye is younger, much faster and packs perhaps the most powerful punch in all of boxing, whereas 2000 Olympic champion Audley has done little in his hugely over-hyped professional career to suggest he’s capable of mixing it at this exalted level.

At first glance then, it’s an early night for Haye and a KO loss for his former friend, which would surely end his career.

Yet there is an X Factor element in all of this - Harrison’s booming left cross, his favourite punch, with which he could expose Haye’s less than stellar chin.

It is, in truth, the proverbial puncher’s chance.

Haye is usually the aggressor in his fights and A-Force likes to walk foes onto his mighty left, creating a glimmer of hope that Harrison will claim the world title he’s been promising since turning pro, against all the odds.

I just can’t see it though.

Haye’s speed and movement will pose Harrison all kinds of problems and if - or rather when - he detonates one of his power punches, one suspects that will be all she wrote.

Despite all his physical advantages, Audley has an annoying tendency to ‘fight scared’ as they say in the trade, retreating from exchanges with arms extended, chin exposed and eyes wide.

Doing that against Haye would be pugilistic suicide. His hooks and uppercuts will fly around such shaky defence like rapier missiles, decimating their target.

It is, I think, the only way this fight can end. Haye by KO before round six.

- Haye vs Harrison is on Sky Box Office from 8pm tomorrow.

Factfile: Tale of the tape

David Haye Audley Harrison

30 AGE 39

6ft 3ins HEIGHT 6ft 5 1/2 ins

78ins REACH 86ins

Orthodox STANCE Southpaw

24 (23 KO) WINS 27 (20KO)

1 LOSSES 4

0 DRAWS 0

88% KO% 64.5%

Speed, power, confidence STRENGTHS Jab, powerful left cross, size

Questionable chin WEAKNESSES Tentative, predictable at times