The scrawny Israelite shepherd boy called David was armed with a sling when he confronted the 9ft Philistine Goliath.

Another David will fight a giant this evening, armed only with his fists and a colossal helping of brash self-confidence. David Haye, the South London boxer, is 6ft 3in and weighs 15st 8lb. His opponent tonight is 7ft tall and weighs 22st 8lb. Nikolai Valuev, the Russian WBA heavyweight champion — the “Beast of the East” — is a hulk of a man, whose very appearance has dissuaded prospective opponents.

History is on the Russian’s side too. No boxer has ever overcome such a weight disadvantage to win a title bout. Any boxer over 14st 4lb (91kg) is a heavyweight, but men who were once considered big are hidden in the shadow of Valuev, the biggest in a modern era of Eastern European supersized heavyweights, that includes the Klitschko brothers, Vitali and Wladimir, who hold the WBC, WBO, IBF and IBO titles between them.

If Haye were boxing someone 7st lighter than him, he would be sharing the ring with a bantamweight.

He remains the favourite among British bookmakers nonetheless, tipped to do what has never been done. Haye himself has claimed that he will deliver a “jaw-dropping knockout”, but most believe he will have to be somewhat cuter.

Jim Watt, the former WBC lightweight champion and now a Sky Sports commentator, said: “We will have to see a different David Haye from any we have seen before if he is going to win.

“David is an exciting fighter and we love that about him, but he can’t be that boxer in this fight.”

So how will he reach, let alone beat, such a big man? Rob McCracken, the trainer of Carl Froch, the WBC super-middleweight champion, believes Haye should not bother trying to hit Valuev in the head early on, as punching upwards could exhaust him.

“He should aim for the shoulder or the chest, anywhere he can hit,” McCracken said. “He needs to show plenty of movement, so he makes Valuev move. That could tire Valuev out and David’s speed could be the difference in the later rounds.”

He may look for inspiration to Jack Dempsey, the popular champion of the Jazz Age. Many feared for Dempsey’s life when he challenged Jess Willard, a man known as the “Pottawatomie Giant” in Toledo, Ohio, in 1919. But Dempsey floored the big man seven times in round one, and the 6ft 6½in Willard quit at the end of the third.

Dempsey would have looked small in comparison to Haye, who has the build of Muhammad Ali in his prime. And like Willard, who is now regarded as among the worst world heavyweight champions in history, Valuev’s skills have been often derided. He can look slow and cumbersome, but he has a powerful jab, is good defensively and looks almost impossible to hurt.

Dempsey did not earn a penny from the win over Willard, as his manager, Jack “Doc” Kearns, had bet the boxer’s entire purse on a first-round win. Haye, 29, has not been anyway near so bold. Many believe his brazen talk in the build-up to this bout has been motivated by the need to get more pay-per-view sales on Sky Box Office, thus improving his own earnings.

The fight in Nuremburg, at an arena built on the site of the famed Nazi Rally Grounds, is sold out and Sky are hoping for record viewing figures when the first bell sounds at 10pm.

In the build-up, Haye has set out to infuriate the bigger man, calling him ugly and “a chump” and asking the Russian to shave his body hair.

Attempting to offer some sort of prelude to journalists at a press conference, Haye staged a mock fight with a giant man in a goblin mask. If the aim was to infuriate Valuev, 36, who speaks no English, he has failed. The Russian is not a philistine in the modern sense of the word: he hunts, fishes and enjoys reading Tolstoy, Conan Doyle and Jack London.

When he heard of Haye’s antics, he merely sighed and said: “There’s another idiot in the world.”

Sport, pages 18-19