By Nate Anderson: In what may be the final nail in the coffin of former 2000 Olympic Gold medalist heavyweight Audley Harrison (23-4, 17 KOs), he was defeated by former Prizefighter’ Heavyweight champion Martin Rogan (11-0, 5 KOs) by a 10-round referee’s decision on Saturday night at the ExCel Arena, Dockland, in London. Rogan, 37, hurt Harrison a couple of times in the fight with big uppercuts and outworked in the vast majority of the rounds.
While the 6’3″ Rogan didn’t have nearly the same size or boxing skills as Harrison, what he did have was much more intensity, aggressiveness and a far better work rate which enabled him to overcome his lack of size and skills, giving him enough of an edge to narrowly defeat Harrison.
I personally had Rogan winning six rounds to four. However, it was very close and it easily could have been draw, although I don’t think Harrison did enough to make it any closer than that. In the 10th round, Harrison stunned Rogan with a series of left uppercuts and was punishing him with shots at the final bell.
If the fight had gone another two rounds, chances are that Harrison may have been able to do enough to get the victory. However, he started off too slowly in the first half of the fight and gave up many of the rounds due to his lack of urgency in the fight. Rogan didn’t have much in the way of hand speed or power, but his style of fight, which included a lot of hard charging attacks, seemed to throw Harrison off balance.
After the fight, Harrison said “He [Rogan] kept rushing me and I couldn’t get my shots off.” Both fighters traded a lot of big shots with the action often seeing Rogan or Harrison winning the first half of the round and then one of them coming on to win the second half.
Rogan used a lot of bum rushes against Harrison in the first round, getting in close and holding and hitting with short punches to the head. Harrison tried to keep him at a distance, holding out his long right hand and pawing at him.
However, Rogan easily got past Harrison’s long arm and would come charging in and throwing wild shots. Most of the time, Harrison was able to get out of the way of Rogan’s punches, but when they were in close, clinching and wrestling, it was impossible for Harrison to keep from getting hit with Rogan’s clubbing shots.
In the second round, Harrison began landing some nice left uppercuts to the head, and succeeded in cutting Rogan on the side of his left eye in the round. Harrison fought well in the first half of the 3rd round, but in the second half of the round, Rogan gave him some problems with left hooks to the head.
However, it appeared that Harrison had done enough to win the round with some of his big left uppercuts that he threw in the early going of the round. In the 4th round, Rogan began rushing in more, sometimes getting hit on the way in with big shots while other times, hitting pay dirt and landing big right hands to the head of Audley.
In the 5th round, Harrison fought well, landing a lot of shots – jabs, uppercuts and straight lefts and using his height to his advantage. When Harrison was busy and throwing punches, you could see the wide gulf between them in terms of overall talent.
Indeed, Harrison had much more talent, but the problem for him was that he rarely fought hard for more than a minute or two in each rounds. Whereas with Rogan, he went all out for three minutes of every round, and was throwing shots even when he didn’t have much power or form behind them.
In rounds six through eight, Rogan outworked Harrison, throwing more punches and keeping Harrison on the back foot. The crowd began to boo Harrison’s lack of work in the 8th, apparently unhappy with the pedestrian manner in which he was conducting the fight.
It didn’t spur him to any increase in action, though, as Rogan continued to control the round. In the 9th, the action went back and forth, with Rogan controlling the first minute, Harrison the second and Rogan finishing strong in the last minute.
It was pretty exciting stuff. In the 10th round, Harrison suddenly looked re-energized and fought hard for the entire round, landing a number of big uppercuts and hurting Rogan in the round. However, Harrison was unable to finish him off and ended up losing the fight.
After the fight, Harrison said “I have a lot of respect for him [Rogan]. A rough and tough guy. I thought I had control over him after the 5th. He hurt me in the 5th or 6th. Mentally, I think I took over. He kept rushing me and I just couldn’t get my shots off. He caught me with some good punches. I showed toughness in there. I think I lost it by a round or two. I could have lost it by two rounds…I was almost there. It almost kicked in. The heart and toughness that they [boxing fans] think I don’t have, I think I showed them.”
“The dream isn’t over. I’m going to go back to the drawing board. I’m going to pick up my work rate. I was almost there, like I said. He’s a rough and tough guy. He hurt a couple of times. I walked to him and said, ‘bring it, come on.’ The fighting heart, that they say I don’t have, I think I showed it. It ain’t over. I’m going to find a way to make it. In the 2nd or 3rd round, I think I broke my jaw or I may have broke it. I hurt him a couple of times, but I wasn’t able to finish him. In 2009, I’m going to be back, I’ll find a way. 10 hard rounds, I’ll be back in there soon. You’ll see me next year.”
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