By Scott Gilfoid: British boxing fans sure must be desperate to see local heavyweights fight, because why else would they pay to watch a bout between David Haye and Audley Harrison. WBA heavyweight champion Haye (25-1, 23 KO’s) had yet another easy win this time over 39-year-old Harrison (27-5, 20 KO’s) in a 3rd round TKO last night at the M.E.N. Arena, in Manchester, England. While boxing fans outside of the UK were disgusted by this mismatch going into the fight, it seems that for a lot of British boxing fans this was an appealing fight. They loved this little mismatch.

Why they saw it as an appealing fight to purchase is massive numbers is really unclear, because there was nothing in Harrison’s pro career that would leave the average a belief that he would have any chance at all against a prime heavyweight like Haye. As it turned out, the fight was a terrible mismatch with Haye bowling over a reluctant Harrison in the 3rd round with a series of blasts, and then finishing him off after Harrison had the great misfortune to get up from the knockdown.

But the real wonder is how boxing fans in the UK could see clear to have purchased the Haye-Harrison fight on pay-per-view. Surely, you would think that the British boxing fans would see through that fight and recognize a terrible mismatch when you see one. Perhaps they didn’t care about throwing away their hard-earned money just for the opportunity to see Harrison get taken out once again.

Harrison has quite a few fans that dislike him, but it’s hard to imagine there being hundreds of thousands of fans willing to pay for this fight just to see Harrison lose again. Did British boxing fans honestly think that Harrison had a chance to beat Haye? If so, what in Harrison’s past fights would make you think he was good enough to beat a fighter like Haye? Perhaps British fans don’t care that this was a mismatch, because there isn’t much to watch in the way of heavyweight talent in the UK. There’s Haye, Harrison, Sam Sexton and Dereck Chisora. Those are the top heavyweights in the UK. As you can see, there’s not much to pick from that list. The talent is mighty thin at heavyweight in the UK. I guess British fans are so desperate to see heavyweights fight that they’re even willing to throw away money to watch mismatches like this one. It’s so sad.

I wouldn’t have paid a penny for this fight if I lived in the UK. They would have had to pay me to watch it because I know mismatch when I see it, and I wouldn’t want to enable Haye by paying money to watch any of his mismatches. By doing that, all you do is set it up so that he’ll continue to fight overmatched opponents and avoid the Klitschko brothers.