After the David Haye spectacular, Audley Harrison’s hand-cart to hell or salvation. And there is no telling which direction our great under-achiever’s rickety old rickshaw will take him on the steep hillside of London’s Alexandra Palace.
Such is the weird and wonderful, death or glory business of heavyweight boxing that Harrison enters a ring erected somewhere between oblivion and a shot at a world title.
Is he about to complete the long haul back to the pinnacle from which he confesses: ‘I tumbled after bringing home gold from the Sydney Olympics 10 years ago’? Or is he about to be knocked out by Michael Sprott for a second time and thereby hurled over the precipice into retirement.
Sprott, 35, stopped Harrison, 38, in five rounds three years ago and says: ‘I’ll do it quicker this time because despite all the talent which won him his gold medal he lacks a little bit of heart for the professional game.’ Harrison, disappointed by those remarks after dedicating his Prizefighter triumph to Ginette Sprott, whose tragic death under the wheels of a train forced her brother’s withdrawl from that tournament, responds: ‘I made ridiculous errors first time against Michael but there won’t be any repeat of that. He needs a miracle to beat me again.’
In the eyes of most observers, it is little short of miraculous that Harrison should find himself back within touching distance of challenging Vitali Klitschko for the WBC belt before Haye, the WBA champion, gets his chance of unifying those titles. But such are the convoluted workings of the hardest game.
The European heavyweight championship brings with it an automatic top 10 WBC ranking and Klitschko might well look upon Harrison as an easy pay-night.
Harrison’s promoter Barry Hearn says: ‘If Audley beats Michael and then completes one successful mandatory defence, he will be in line for Vitali.’
The same should apply to Sprott. Harrison, cruelly lampooned sometimes as the Fraudley of boxing, resurrected his career with that Prizefighter success but Sprott knocks that, too, saying to his rival’s face: ‘I would have won that event, not you, had I not been in mourning.’
To which Harrison angrily reacts: ‘You had better be ready and willing to take a pain-load of punishment.’
Talking a good fight has never been Harrison’s problem and he reminds us: ‘I came from a young offender’s institute to gain a university degree and win that Olympic gold for my country.
‘People call me a failure but all that makes me is a British success story. I cannot let myself lose again to Sprott. It won’t happen, because this man is simply not in my class.’
Not even Sprott argues with that evaluation but he knows that there is more to boxing than natural-born talent.
Harrison ought to win hands up. We hold our breath and wait to see if the proximity of hell-fire and eternal damnation will nerve him to start fulfilling what he still believes to be his destiny.
Source: dailymail.co.uk
No comments:
Post a Comment