35-year old Audley Harrison (21-3, 16 KOs) was injured in an automobile crash while coming out of a training camp in Vero beach, making it necessarily for him to cancel his bout with Paul King (5-18-1, 1 KOs), which had been previously scheduled for September 29th. Harrison, the former 2000 Olympic Gold medallist in the Super heavyweight class, was driving his vehicle onto U.S. Highway 1, when another vehicle failed to give him access onto the highway, resulting in a crash between the two vehicles. Harrison sustained serious injuries to his wrist, hand, shoulder, chest and head. He reportedly had an MRI done on his most serious injury, to his shoulder. At this time, Harrison stated that he’ll need a minimum of six weeks to rehabilitate his injuries enough so that he can continue training and move forward towards his comeback bout. It’s unknown whether that will still involve the journeyman King.
Harrison had recently been stopped in the 3rd round by Michael Sprott on February 17, 2007, wiping out a brief two-fight comeback in which Harrison had won two fights in a row following successive losses to Danny Williams and Dominic Guinn in 2005 and 2006.
At 35, Harrison is facing an uphill battle in trying to rebuild his career, as he’s getting up there an age and it will no doubt be much harder for him to prepare for younger fighters. Harrison has made a serious mistake by going slow with his career after starting his professional boxing career at age 29 in 2001. The smart move would have been for him to fight often and move quickly up the latter as he tackles progressively tougher opposition. However, Harrison waited too longer and when he finally took a step up and faced Danny Williams in December 2005, it was too large a jump and Harrison was defeated. He should have been fighting fighters that were shade below Williams in talent, which would have made the bout a smaller step instead of going from a journeyman fighter straight to Williams.