Audley Harrison

This isn't a mickey taking OP and please keep the thread as such. But what happened to him? Why did he turn out to be a near pacifist boxer? I've just seen his fight with Danny Williams and he looked good. Aggressive, threw punches in bunches, a wide variety of punches and with power. He had the size, athleticism and skills to make it big in the HW scene. I thought he would be the heir apparent to Lewis.

He seems to be a cautious boxer by nature. Did the Sprott KO permenantly keep him in his shell?

I just dont think he was all that great to begin with. The difference between the pro and amateur game is pretty significant. Even a gold medal is no real guarantee of success. When you look at some of the guys he lost to in the amateurs like Sergei Liakhovitch for example I think overall he just wasnt actually as talented as people initially believed.

That may be the case. But he had a wide variety of punches, good power, skills and a very decent jab when he threw it. In the sprott fight, he was winning wiht ease and fighting with confidence. Then....BANG. After that he seemed to go into a shell and never fulfilled whatever talent he had.

He became the definition of gun shy.

Im not sure Id agree there with the Sprott point. Even before Sprott it was evident enough that there were problems. Hed already lost to Williams and some other journeyman at that stage and had always seemed to lack aggressiveness. He had rarely impressed to any great degree even against overmatched opponents. I think his jab was good at an amateur level where it could score points but at pro level it was nothing to write home about and he didnt use it to any great effect and was unable to control fights with it.

People have speculated for years about what went wrong with him but when its all said and done I just suspect he lacked the talent necessary to succeed in the pro game at world level.

He had lost to Guinn and as you say was somewhat reluctant to throw many punches. But in the Williams and first couple of rounds against Sprott, he was aggressive and forcing the fight. After Sprott, he went missing in the ring.

I believe he had the talent, but not the fighter's spirit. A fighter who is scared of being hit should choose another career.

Yeah the no heart/courage/spirit seems to be the most popular reason put forward for his failure to impact the world scene. I used to think that was the case but the guy just keeps coming back to ever increasing ridicule and abuse and you have to wonder if he was afraid to be hit or lacked heart why would he keep putting himself through this agony? Hes over 40 now and still the show must go on. I just cant believe anyone would do this to themselves.

With boxers, Im pretty reluctant to buy into the "not like getting hit" argument. I mean most boxers dont enjoy getting hit. And after years of being an amateur, and a pretty successful one at that, fear of getting hit should be bred out of you to a large extent. You just get used to it. You also have to consider the times where he did battle through the pain barrier such as the second Sprott fight. He showed a fair amount of heart there.

Ultimately I just question was he ever talented enough to win at world level in the pros? Theres just no explicable reason for losing to guys like Guinn or Rogan if you are highly talented. If they were down to being knocked out you could maybe understand but he was outpointed by these guys!

I have to wonder what he does in training, whenever I watch Harrison I am drawn to a quote in Chris Eubank's autobiography when he is going through the benefits of a lot of decent sparring in camp, he basically ays when you first start sparring you will wince or blink when someone throws a punch at you because it is a human ingrained protection mechanism, it is only after several rounds you stop doing this and start either slipping or parrying the shots as a boxer should. Think of this everytime I watch Audley because he still blinks or flinches whenever he has something thrown.

Of course there is always the possibility I could be overthinking it and he may just not be very good, as Manos has alluded to the difference between amateur and pro is so pronounced now succcess in the former should not be seen as guaranteeing anything in the latter.

I'm pretty much in agreement with Manos here; to me, Audley just wasn't all that good. I've never really understood this 'unfulfilled talent' talk surrounding him. Some over the past decade have seemed to almost take it as a given that, had Audley had the heart of a Chris Eubank and the dedication of a Dennis Andries, he'd have naturally and easily strolled his way to a world title - which is absolute cobblers to me.

It's almost as if he told people he was a mercurial talent ready to flourish so much they simply were brainwashed in to thinking it, much like the considerable number of people who were spouting lines of how Haye was going to be in a lot of trouble if Audley turned up with his A-game. If Audley's boxing was a tenth as good as his self-promotion he'd have picked up a strap or two now.

The second Williams fight suggested there may be something there, but just about every single other fight he's ever had has suggested the exact opposite. Even then, this was a battle-worn Williams who'd taken the fight at short notice, and who was hardly a model of consistency at domestic / European level.

Sorry, for me Audley could have had all the bottle and focus on the planet, but I still don't think he'd have ever become a Heavyweight champion, much less so a champion to fill the void left by Lennox.

To be fair Chris is easy to get sucked in with Harrison, he sells himself so well he could convince you he could beat Ali and Louis on the same night. He also looks the part, 6ft 5, long reach, southpaw stance which creates problems, some power when he actually throws a punch and often not in horrific shape, add all this to his amateur pedigree and you almost convince yourself the evidence of your own eyes once he gets in the ring is lying to you.

The Williams showed he could stay in range and throw punches.

He had the toold imo but not the boxer's desire. When you take a shower...../ Enter a boxing ring you get hit. Audley just didn't want to get hit. I dont question his heart or gonads because stepping into the ring is brave enough. But what seperates some from the rest is their desire to step up when the going gets tough. Audley stepped out.

Also you have to consider it wasnt just Audley who bigged himself up. Pundits, media and even respected figures were all banging the drum hard for him. Even the BBC were fooled into paying him a million quid to fight nobodies. It just took a while for the penny to drop. Everybody was so convinced he would be a champion.

But when you lok back even at his amateur success. He lost to guys like Liakhovitch and Sinan Sam who both went pro themselves but didnt really get anywhere themselves (Liakhovitch managed to briefly hold a strap but his pro career never amounted to much). I just dont think it was a great crop of amateurs Audley was competitng with.

azania wrote:The Williams showed he could stay in range and throw punches.

He had the toold imo but not the boxer's desire. When you take a shower...../ Enter a boxing ring you get hit. Audley just didn't want to get hit. I dont question his heart or gonads because stepping into the ring is brave enough. But what seperates some from the rest is their desire to step up when the going gets tough. Audley stepped out.

Yeah but looking good against Williams doesnt really have much bearing on world level credentials. At the time Williams was a bog standard domestic level heavy when Audley beat him. Its fine looking good then but its hard to ignore the many fights he was so unimpressive in. He almost single handedly took boxing off the BBC.

There are people who are claustrophobic potholers. Men who are scared of the dark yet seek out tunnels and cramped places to work.

There is something inside us all that can consciously face and test our fears, or fall victim to them.

Audley's problem is multi-fold - there is no one reason why he failed so spectacularly.

Firstly - there is rampant self doubt. He believes in himself less and less over the course of a fight camp - I think he actually quite enjoys training (else why keep going when there is no realistic hope of a positive outcome) - and in the early stages of a fight camp - things seem positive. He's training hard, he's putting in the hours with real venom. Then the fight becomes a matter of 6 weeks away - and its not many weeks either. Suddenly things look a bit bleaker and we don't hear any more from his camp. No words about how fit and raring to go he is - just how hard he trained (passe). By the time fight night comes around, his belief in himself is practically gone. His big wins - have come out of desperation and anguish - the fight with Williams, where he was angry rather than calmly defeating an opponent. The fight with Sprott, where he was desperate to avoid another defeat.

Second we have this awkward problem that he doesn't like being hit. Now - to be fair - no-one does. However, when some people are convinced they are losing a contest they open up, throw caution to the winds and walk onto a monstrous right that ends the contest for them.

Not Audley. To walk onto that monstrous right you'd have to be hit. Audley would prefer to stay defensive - and not take the right hand, even if he's losing round after round on points.

Then we have his perfectionism. Now perfectionism isn't too bad a thing - in its place. I can actually quote a reference here - and that is his fight against Scott Belshaw in Prizefighter and subsequently against Coleman Barrett. There can be no doubt that these 2 opponents were vastly overmatched when they fought Audley. Belshaw shouldn't have lasted 10 seconds - he doesn't have much of a chin. However - Audley stood off him and waited to time the perfect counter-left hand. Against Barrett he tried the same - but Barrett had the common sense to move and try to outwork Harrison. If he'd been bigger, with a little more movement he'd have managed it too.

Its that desire to do it perfectly - with perfect movement and timing that actually holds him back. Sometimes - you've just got to throw the damn punch.

My judo coach took me to task about a year and a half ago for not putting in enough attacks. In randori (sparring I suppose) - I'd throw someone 2, or 3 times in 5 minutes - and I was happy with that. It wasn't however, enough for my coach - who gave me a rather impressive love sacksing - he was, of course right. It takes time to learn an attack - and its going to take a damn site longer if you're only doing 10 attacks a night.

The situation is analogous with A-force. His output throughout his professional career has been dismal (and it wasn't much better during his amateur days). As such - he's never really learned how to unlock a defence, how to fight off the front foot. In the end - all he has is either a desperate swing, such as the left that KO'd sprott, an anger filled performance (that wouldn't work on the top level) as against Williams II or that counter-left hand, down the middle - his stock punch.

Take away the counter left - and what remained? A mass of insecurities that conquered his talent.

Audley will always remain a talented enigma. I don't hold much by looking at people he lost to in the amateur ranks - as after all - DeAndrey Abron was national Golden Gloves champion in 2003 - but is nothing more than a journeyman now. He had the physique, the technique to do better.

Belief is just as important. He picked the best time in the world for everything to come together and "click" - in the Olympics no less. However - to achieve more would require a reserve of self-belief that I don't think he has.

I seen flashes of a good fighter at times but they were few and far between. He had the tools but didn't have the head or the heart.

He's fighting soon against some utter no mark. £40 the cheapest tickets are going for! And this is a leisure centre. Now, I love a night of boxing but I totally refuse to line that bloke's pockets.

His bottle has totally gone, no heart at all.

I agree that maybe the knock out effected him. More so the point it was a lucky punch by Sprot who was on the back foot and Audley was ontop.

So it may be that mentally it has made him more cautious.

To say he never was any good is simply not true as he won a gold medal and clearly had the tools at his disposal, Hight, Reach, good power, decent speed.. and he knew how to box... he could also take a punch despite that one that knocked him out..

He defiantly started to go backwards after a few hick ups.. maybe he did not have the right team around him to keep his mind set in good condition.