Klitschko predicts Haye knockout

Wladimir Klitschko has vowed to knock David Haye out in the 12th round of their heavyweight clash in Gelsenkirchen on 20 June.

Klitschko is defending his IBF and WBO titles at Schalke 04's Veltins Arena, a bout Haye has called "the biggest heavyweight fight of all time".

"I understand he is a young and insolent man," Klitschko said at a news conference in Germany on Thursday.

"My advice would be to control his emotions and save them for the ring."

Haye, 28, a former undisputed cruiserweight world champion, has only fought as a heavyweight twice before.

ut he promised to take boxing "to a whole new stratosphere" in beating Klitschko and that the fight would presage "the beginning of a legend".

"I have declared war on the Klitschko family," said Londoner Haye, who has 22 wins and 21 knockouts from 23 fights.

"First on Wladimir and then [WBC heavyweight champion and Wladimir's elder brother] Vitali. On 20 June the war will begin.

"I am in my prime, my resume speaks for itself and I am not coming here to pick up a pay cheque like the rest of his opponents."

Ukrainian Klitschko, who has 52 wins and three losses, with 46 knockouts, simply replied: "I will give him a lesson."

The fight will be the 33-year-old Klitschko's seventh defence of his IBF title which he won against Chris Byrd in April 2006.

He beat Russia's Sultan Ibragimov in February 2008 to add the WBO crown and his last fight was a seventh-round stoppage of former world champion Hasim Rahman last December.

Haye's only defeat came against fellow Briton Carl Thompson in 2004, when he was stopped in the fifth round.

But he beat Frenchman Jean Marc Mormeck in Paris to claim the undisputed cruiserweight crown in 2007, before destroying Welshman Enzo Maccarinelli last March.

Earlier this month he said he had taken the fight to "save boxing".

"I'm doing this for Jack Dempsey, Rocky Marciano, Joe Louis, Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier and all the other great, smaller heavyweights of the past," he added.

"I feel as though I've been sent by all the great heavyweights of yesteryear to clean up and save the heavyweight division."