By Sean McDaniel: European Boxing Union heavyweight champion Audley Harrison (27-4, 20 KO’s) has reportedly ruptured his pectoral muscle on his right side of his chest in his last fight against Michael Sprott on April 9th, and will need surgery to repair the problem. This is the same injury that the 38-year-old Harrison suffered before eight years ago in 2002. Harrison says in an interview at Sky Sports, “I ruptured my pectoral, a total rupture. It ripped in the second round [against Sprott]. I couldn’t use it [talking about his right hand] from then on.” Harrison defeated Sprott by a 12th round knockout in an exciting come from behind victory at the Alexandra Palace in London.
For much of the fight, Harrison fought poorly, taking big shots to the head, not throwing enough punches and only being able to use his left hand. Harrison tried various different strategies to get around the injury, switching from southpaw stance to orthodox so that he could use his good hand, his left, to try and keep Sprott away from him. It didn’t work, though, and only made Harrison look uncoordinated. Harrison hadn’t toyed with fighting orthodox before and it showed.
Harrison seemed to have no idea how to fight using a different stance and quickly began to take big shots from Sprott without even attempting to block them. Harrison also tried to use movement to keep away from Sprott. That, too, failed badly, as Sprott proved to be very quick on his feet and good at cutting off the ring on Harrison to force him to fight. In the end, Harrison’s left hand is what saved him. Harrison started loading up with big left hand shots starting in the 10th and seemed to slow Sprott down until taking him out with a vicious left hook to the head in the 12th that sent Sprott down flat on his back on the canvas. Sprott was badly hurt from the knockout and was given oxygen as a precaution.
The pectoral injury will take a lot of time to recover from. Harrison is older at 38, and even for a young fighter you can assume this is the type of injury that would take an extensive amount of time to recover from. Harrison wants to fight World Boxing Association heavyweight champion David Haye and also wants to fight WBC title holder Vitali Klitschko.
There was talk that Harrison could possibly get a shot against Vitali later on in 2010, perhaps by December. The injury likely changes all that. Speaking of Haye, Harrison says “David Haye doesn’t want to fight me. I’ve spared many rounds with David Haye. David is a big puncher, but is open to getting knocked out. The history of British heavyweight boxing shows that the two heavyweights always collide at some point. Destiny is going to make me and David Haye fight. I will go and win a world title and then we’ll see how irrelevant Mr. Audley Harrison is.”
The chances of Haye fighting Harrison in the future is probably very slim at best. Haye has put a short timeline on his career and plans on fighting only four fights in defending his WBA title and going after unification bouts against the Klitschko brothers. If Haye gets destroyed by both Klitschko brothers, which is highly likely given Haye’s small frame, he could then look for a fight against Harrison to try and build his confidence back up. But if Haye beats both of the Klitschko brothers, then it’s probably not likely that Haye would want to fight Harrison. There would be no point to it unless Harrison was stepping it up and beating world class opposition himself.
Harrison says “Alexander Dimitrenko is the number one contender [to Harrison’s EBU title], so I have to fight him. He’s a tough guy from Ukraine, 6’7”. If I beat him, and I plan to, then I will be ranked in the top 10 by all of the organizations. I am one fight away from a legitimate world title challenge.” Harrison is correct. However, beating Dimitrenko might be a tall order for Harrison. Although Dimitrenko has been shown to have a weak chin and poor stamina in his fights against Timo Hoffmann and Eddie Chambers, he’s still a skilled heavyweight, moves well for a big man and is tough. I can see Harrison knocking him flat if Audley fights as aggressively as he did in the 12th round against Sprott. But if Harrison doesn’t show fire in a fight with Dimitrenko, then Harrison will likely be stopped.
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