By William Mackay: 40-year-old Audley Harrison (28-5, 21 KO’s) says he’s going to put in a good effort tonight win or lose against the young and undefeated British and Commonwealth heavyweight champion David Price (13-0, 11 KO’s) at the Echo Arena, Liverpool, Merseyside, United Kingdom. You can’t say Harrison’s career will be over if he loses, because his career has been sinking into the mire for ages now and one more loss won’t change much.

It’s pretty obvious that Price’s promoter Frank Maloney specifically picked out Harrison because of how poor he’s been fighting for the past five years. If he was fighting at the top of his game this fight likely wouldn’t be happening.

Harrison told “He [Price] is going to have to beat me with his skill because I am turning up and putting on a performance.”

I don’t know what to expect from Harrison. He says things to hype his fights ahead of time but then he fails to put in a good effort. It’s not likely that Harrison will last long against Price tonight whether Harrison fights all out or fights in the same manner that he did against former WBA heavyweight champion David Haye two years ago in a non effort from Harrison in losing by a 3rd round TKO to Haye.

A lot of boxing fans felt burned by the experience because Harrison had made it seem like he was going to fight hard but then did little more than stand in front of Haye with a petrified look on his face as if he was afraid to move. We should have known something was up when Harrison was interviewed before the fight and he could barely answer a question as he looked incredibly nervous.

Price needs to win this fight convincingly tonight to be taken serious by boxing fans as a future world champion. If Price struggles in beating Harrison then boxing fans will assume that he doesn’t have the talent to beat the better fighters at the world level. This fight against Harrison is Price fighting a weaker guy from the 2nd tier level, and he’s supposed to beat a guy like this with ease. If Price can’t then it would suggest that Price won’t make it when he finally moves up in weight at some point in the future. At 29, Price needs to be moved up soon because he’s wasting a lot of his best years fighting weak opposition. That’s all he needs is to be put in a title fight in his early 30s and find out that the younger heavyweights are too much for him.