By William Mackay: WBA heavyweight champion David Haye (24-1, 22 KO’s) gave Audley Harrison a bit of hope recently in saying in an article at Sky Sports, “I like Audley. I think he’s got a lot of ability and a lot of potential but for some reason something’s not clicking. Hopefully, he’s got that figured out now, and hopefully he can knock Michael Sprott out, (and then Alexander Dimitrenko), and he could be my next contender. And he can be knocking on my door with everyone wanting me to fight Audley Harrison. But before that he’s got to beat two guys.”
Haye is almost surely teasing Harrison, because Haye is saying he only plans on fighting four more times and then retiring by the time he turns 31. There’s almost no chance that Harrison, even if he does beat Sprott and Dimitrenko, will get a shot against Haye. Of course, I never thought that Haye would fight Monte Barrett, Tomasz Bonin and Nikolay Valuev, either, not after how much Haye had talked about wanting to fight the Klitschko brothers. Those fighters, last time I checked, weren’t the Klitschko brothers or in the same class as them.
Haye says “Everything I’ve prophesied so far I’ve put into practice and achieved. I said I’d be the cruiserweight world champion and I become that, I said I’d become the unified champion and I did that, I said I’d be the heavyweight champion and I did that.” Haye only partially unified the cruiserweight titles. He captured the WBA, WBC and WBO cruiserweight titles, but not the IBF title. And he had talked about beating the Klitschko brothers before moving up in weight. As I pointed out, Haye hasn’t done that. He beat Nikolay Valuev, Bonin, Barrett and John Ruiz. Those aren’t the Klitschko brothers.
Haye continues “I think I’ve achieved everything I said. And Audley said when he won the Olympics that he’d be a British champion in five fights. I don’t think he’s even won the British title to this day, and this is his first major title fight, and it’s a vacant title against Michael Sprott, a guy who knocked him the spark out in three rounds.” There’s no question that Harrison has struggled in his career, losing to guys like Sprott, Dominick Guinn, Martin Rogan and Danny Williams. Harrison has lacked the intensity in his fights for some reason.
In the Prizefighter tournament, Harrison finally found the fire that he’s been missing during his career. However, those were three round fights against less than top tier opposition. His opponents were overmatched and all Harrison was show some aggression and the fight was his own talent alone. It’s hard to say how good Harrison would be if he fought with the same kind of fire he did in the Prizefighter tourney. With his size and power, he’d be a problem for many of the top heavyweights, including Haye.
“I think he [Harrison] should focus more on his own career and not worry about me so much,” Haye says. “He’s lost a lot of fights to guys he shouldn’t have lost to.” That’s true. Harrison probably should be unbeaten at this point if he fought with a lot of energy in his fights. But maybe Harrison has learned his lesson and is a smarter fighter at 38. It sometimes takes fighters awhile to get their career turned around. Harrison might be one of those kind of guys.
What seems kind of weird about Haye’s advice to Harrison is that he seems to be coming from up high, as if he’s got it all figured out and that he’s succeeded in accomplishing a lot. Let’s be real, Haye beat the weakest of the heavyweight champions and beat a 38-year-old Ruiz, who probably had no business being ranked as high as he was. I could understand Haye lecturing Harrison if Haye beaten the Klitschkos, or some of the best heavyweights in the division like Odlanier Solis and Alexander Povetkin but he hasn’t done that.
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