Harrison & Haye - Heavyweight Ambitions

Over the past couple of weeks the ever brightly shining star of David Haye continued to rise and the nearly burnt out star of Audley Harrison showed it still has a bit of twinkle left.

Haye, who has grown more and more popular with the public, and although still putting some off with his trash talking, has an uncanny knack of backin up his chat. After just 25 seconds of his 1st heavyweight championship defence, Haye dropped John Ruiz who had previously only been knocked out once. Luckily for anybody who forked out to watch the fight, Ruiz was up for taking a lot more punishment, being knocked down twice more before his corner threw in the towel in the 9th round.

Impressive again, David Haye showed he is a breath of fresh air to the heavyweight division with his swift movement and hammer like blows. Next up must be the Klitschko brothers and it seems Haye has definitely got their attention by the looks of Wladimir's comical video calling him out. He sounds like he'd be well cast for a baddy in a Die Hard film or something like that.



Now on to Audley....hmm. Our good friend and blog sister DJ Nikki is a good friend of Audley's and was invited to watch him as he won his "win or retire" bout for the European Championship against Michael Sprott. I am assured that he is a great guy and I don't doubt that. As your average boxing fan though it's a shame not to have the same insight.

A-Force, or as some have dubbed him, "A-Farce" or "Fraudley", was basically fighting for his career against an opponent who had previously knocked him out. Harrison laboured for most of the fight and found himself behind on the judges cards entering the 12th round. To be fair he was fighting with a shoulder injury for the majority of the fight...but saying that, Haye manage to defeat Valuev being one handed most of the fight? And I can assure you Sprott is no Valuev! To his credit Audley managed to dig in and rocked Sprott with a massive left which ended the fight in the 12th.

Now I have a few issues with Harrison...to me, in the fights i've seen, he just doesn't look comfortable in the ring. He fights on the back foot and almost looks scared on occasions. There's no doubt he was a talented amateur, they don't give away Olympic golds for nothing, but he just hasn't cut it as a pro. All this I could forgive though if it wasn't for his incessant self hyping and unrealistic boasts. If David Haye is the poster boy for talking sh!t and being able to back it up, Audley is the flag bearer for all those with delusions of grandeur.

You have to have confidence in any sport to do well and in boxing, a bit of self promotion is all part of the game. When your claims are so unrealistic and out of touch with public opinion though, so that even those who used to support you are alienated, you have to wonder whether it's time to pack it in.

When all is said and done I wish luck to both of them, I just hope Audley is able to reclaim some humility and then i'll be behind him all the way.