Very scathing about the authenticity of the fight!
So what do you guys think?Empty title for Harrison, the man of empty words
“AUDLEY HARRISON is an out-and-out fraud. He’s still not fought a name that anyone’s heard of. Where’s the substance? There’s nothing there. How much longer have we got to listen to his bulls*** and have the BBC subsidise it? In terms of the lowest of low-rank title fights, this one coming up would not even get on the scale.”
— allegedly, boxing promoter, yesterday morning
AND so, in nine days’ time, another Harrison bout approaches and it would appear that he will march into Wembley Arena and on to the BBC to the same old tune. The gold medal-winner is plundering a goldmine full of easy bouts. At least that is how the tune goes, and it is not as if we have not heard it before.
This time, though, there is a catch. This time around there is a world heavyweight title at stake and a boxer unbeaten in 21 bouts is defending it. The spin is that the hour is at last upon us when we should take Harrison seriously. As Harrison said in fightpromotion mode recently: “I have earmarked myself to be where Lennox (Lewis) is now in another 12 to 18 months. I believe I am the future of the heavyweight division.”
So, first, to that heavyweight title that he will be contesting on Saturday week. This is the title of the World Boxing Foundation (WBF), a sanctioning body that originated in Tennessee some 20 years ago and now operates with no full-time employees out of the office of a property developer in Melbourne. Even in the words of Mick Croucher, the property man and proud WBF president, “it is not one of the world’s top sanctioning bodies”.
Of the 17 weight divisions, the WBF has six champions and 11 vacancies. Of those six champions, their average ranking, according to the respected Internet Boxing Records Archive, is lower than 50th in the world.
In response to the suggestion that the WBF may be slightly short of credibility, Croucher said: “A few years ago, it hit a bit of turbulence and kind of took a nosedive like a plane in the sky. There were a few of the wrong type of people involved in it. But it didn’t go out of business, it just stopped operating for a bit.”
Anyway, of its six world champions, it does have a heavyweight — the man against whom Harrison will box — Richel Hersisia, a 29-year-old from The Hague dubbed “the Dutch Sonny Liston”. For a measure of the glamour involved with being WBF heavyweight champion, we must rewind to Hersisia’s last defence, in October on the Netherlands Antilles island of Cura çao, against Zoltan Petranyi, a Hungarian whose 22-bout career included 11 defeats.
According to Olaf Schröder, Hersisia’s manager, the venue, “Madison Sports Garden”, was “a parking lot with four walls around it” which, despite a start time of eight o’clock, was still having its ring constructed at nine. Although billed to stage a promotion of seven bouts, it managed only four. Hersisia’s contest was stopped in the first round because of a cut that Petranyi sustained in a clash of heads. Afterwards, while Hersisia was giving an interview, Schröder went in search of his payment and was told that he and his man should be looking out for their lives rather than their money. On being informed again that there were people who wanted to kill them, he and Hersisia ran for their lives.
As for Petranyi, he was frustrated to lose so early on a technicality. “Zoltan had only a 50 per cent win-lose record, he’s really nothing special,” Felix Racz, his manager, said, “but maybe he could have won. He had a good chance because I don’t see anything special in Hersisia. He can bang, but everyone can bang. He is not world-class, and he’s not a real heavyweight. He’s not tall and I don ’t know if he’s in shape now, but he’s not an athletic guy.”
This is the general impression of Harrison’s opponent. “Hersisia is average in every way,” Didier Botella, trainer of Jean Duborg Traori, said. When Traori, a French dustbin man, boxed Hersisia two years ago, he had a record of two wins in 16 and yet lasted the distance with him. “It was an equal match,” Botella said. “Hersisia is not a good technician. If it had been in France, maybe the result would have been different.”
After Traori, Hersisia faced Antoine Palatis, another Frenchman, who has the unremarkable record of 15 defeats in 43 fights. “He’s a world champion now, is he?” Palatis asked, surprised to hear of Hersisia’s progress. “Of a minor federation, I think.”
Palatis also went the distance with Hersisia, but his was a battle with diabetes, too. “I had a good fight with him,” he said, “but I have not got many good results during my career. I am diabetic and that raises many problems. I have an injection four times a day. I fought all around Europe with bravery but I always brought this health problem with me. I was often tired and did not always feel self-confident.”
Not even Schröder, Hersisia’s manager, is prepared to mount a defence of his man. The Liston tag, he says, was not of his own choosing and he has never been able to lose it. “It definitely doesn’t mean he’s the second coming,” he said. “Let’s not kid ourselves, he’s fighting at a level way below world-class.”
This is an impression corroborated by David Haye, the bright British prospect, who sparred with him in The Netherlands a fortnight ago. “I’m still only cruiserweight,” Haye said, “but he’s a lot smaller than I am, under six foot and not particularly thick set. Audley will beat him in one or two rounds. If Hersisia stands off him, I’m talking about five or ten seconds before Audley is all over him. Hersisia’s not a world champion by any stretch.”
Indeed he is not. In fact, by comparison, his astonishing achievement is to give a faint tinge of credibility to Harrison’s list of unknown opponents. Hersisia has never boxed anyone in the world top 200 and the accumulated records of his past ten opponents includes more defeats than wins.
The sum of all this, at Wembley, will be a summit meeting of two of the most successfully and brazenly manufactured records in the game. Schröder does not even bother making a denial, though, like many, he is bemused by Harrison’s attitude. “Neither of them has even beaten a European-class fighter,” he said, “but Audley’s talking about major world titles. The true champions don’t talk as much as Audley.”
It was Harrison, of course, who once said that he would shun fringe sanctioning bodies. More memorably, he boasted after winning Olympic gold that he was five bouts away from being British heavyweight champion. He is now 14 bouts into his professional career and not bothering with the British title because, despite a particularly active and interesting domestic heavyweight scene, he says there is no one worth the challenge.
Nevertheless, a month ago, he gatecrashed a press conference between two leading British heavyweights and announced through a loud-hailer: “This is Audley Harrison, future world champion.” This is all talk; empty talk. He probably will have a world title on Saturday week, but it will remain as meaningless as his words.
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