Stand up but don’t be a joke, Audley Harrison

Londoner is back for a 10-rounder heading a bill hyped 'Redemption or Retirement'
25 May 2012

The mantra is wearily familiar and impossibly optimistic. “I still think I can be a world champion,” says Audley Harrison. “I’ve still got that fire, I’ve still got that belief. It wouldn’t be worth me coming back if I didn’t.”

That ring return takes place tomorrow evening at the Brentwood Centre, a public hall to be found on the side of the A12 that leads east out of London. As fight venues go it is about as far removed from the glitzy glamour of those vast hotel-stadia in Las Vegas, where Harrison still dreams he might pursue his trade, as the man himself was from beating David Haye last time out.

That was at the MEN Arena in Manchester at the tailend of 2010. A long time ago, indeed, yet if you listen carefully it is just possible to discern the last lingering echoes of the jeers raining down on an outrageous — rather than courageous — performance in which Harrison landed just one punch before he was battered to a halt just over halfway through the third round.

Now 40, the Londoner is back for a 10-rounder heading a bill hyped ‘Redemption or Retirement’.

Redemption? Harrison — a worthy Olympic gold medalist who briefly wore the European heavyweight championship belt — is hardly going to be afforded that by beating Iraq-born, Chelsea-dwelling, part-time security worker Ali Adams who has won only 13 of his 17 contests and who has not fought beyond six rounds.

Retirement? Harrison knows he will have no other choice but to hang up his gloves should 30-year-old Adams prevail. He said: “I need to go back and give it one more shot because the Haye fight wasn’t a performance I can be proud of, it wasn’t a performance I can live with. But I’ve got to be honest with myself.

If Adams beats me, 100 per cent it’s over. I just need to be able to go out on my shield, knowing I’ve left it all in the ring.”

Give him his due, Harrison is disarmingly frank in his assessment of a professional career that promised so much but which ultimately presented so little. Going in against Adams having won 27 of his 32 bouts, he said: “The bottom line is, you’ve got to walk it and you’ve got to talk it and I haven’t delivered it.

“My own goal? I was supposed to have been a world champion, so by my own standards I haven’t achieved what I was supposed to. I’ve got a European championship and that’s not bad. Olympic gold medal? Definitely, that’s great.

“But I did say, ‘listen, I’m going to be a world champion’. And I haven’t done it. People can hang me on that, but my philosophy is it is better to have tried.

“Some of my performances have been good, and some of them dire. Why they crucify me is because, when I come out of those dire performances, I don’t come out with my tail between my legs. I stand up for who I am and what I am.”

Not if Adams can help it. “I’m getting bored of ‘Uncle’ Audley talking about redemption, clean slates and fresh starts,” he said. “How many slates does he want? Everyone knows that if Audley could fight like he talks, he would be the greatest heavyweight known to man. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case and Audley probably has the most tarnished name within the sport.”

The last words, and there is something hauntingly ominous about them, go to Harrison. “I’ve made a lot of noise,” he acknowledged. “Now I need to finish the story, on my terms.”

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