Haye-Harrison assessed on 40 key points

[whiskey]

Yes, I am a Harrison supporter, but hopefully people don't mistake that for bias. We all have our favourites (as well as those we dislike) and this is only natural. It shouldn't be a problem so long as we can still assess them fairly.

To that end, have I been generous to Harrison? Well, I'd prefer to think of it more along the lines of being someone who's not too critical. He has a lot of detractors and I'd say a lot of those people are unfair on him to the degree of negative bias. For example, refusing to acknowledge the circumstances of the Sprott rematch, or criticising him for things other UK heavyweights have been guilty of (there's a lot to criticise Danny Williams for, but he gets a pass because he's a "nice bloke").

As it happens I like and support Haye, too, and I also think he comes in for some unfair snipes at times. And finally, for the record, I don't think Harrison did enough to justify a world title shot, nor do I think he'll win it, so hopefully people don't think I'm letting my heart rule my head.

Good post.

Lesser men than Audley have challenged for Heavyweight titles.

[yiddo14]

Who are these lesser men then Gomez?

Do you mean lesser in terms of what Audley has achieved as a person or lesser as in they were not as good a Boxer as he apparently is?

[bruthead]

This is very similar to my 41 point analysis. My 41st point is 'DESTINY' which I score for Audley 'A-Force' Harrison. I should add that the 'DESTINY' category is also worth 11 points on my scoring system.

This means my final marks are: Haye - 25, Harrison - 26.

Some people have questioned the weighting I attach to 'DESTINY' but any long-time expert observers know that it is the biggest, most crucial intangible of them all. It is the factor many people missed when predicting Douglas-Tyson, Foreman-Ali and Rahman-Lewis I.

[jamesmcdonnell]

However poor Audley has been in the past, Haye is not as good as some people think.

He is however, a lot better than Audley thinks he is.

I have serious doubts whether Audley could have beaten Mormeck, even with the weight disparity.

[reggaereggae]

It was with Amazement that I noticed in today's boxing news, that Audley is favoured to win against David, according to their internet pollseters.

By 53% to 47%...That is seriously unexpected.

I would expect 80-20 or 70-30 to David!

[jamesmcdonnell]

Jesus! I'm speechless.

Luckily this is writing.

[WelshDevil]

I enjoyed the article. Very balanced analysis of the two combatants.

[oliverfennell]

I think you missed a key point though Oliver.

History

Back in 2006 they had a spar with Lewis watching. Harrison has openly admitted (maybe trying to get Haye to relax) that he "couldn't lay a glove on him".... however, he cites that to his advantage saying that Haye was trying to KO him and he was in bad shape mentally at the time. and still Haye didn't KO him. Maybe so, but lets not forget the size of the gloves and the head gear there - if Michael Sprott can KO him and he hurt him badly on a couple of occasions in the rematch - then surely so can Haye and can Harrison even catch him!

One thing we know about Haye, since the Thompson fight, he can stick to a game plan rigidly. So if he replicates the sparring - then surely its game over for A force.

"History" is a decent point of analysis, but I don't like to include hearsay about sparring and so on, because more often than not it's just a case of one man's word against anothers.

Also, the format of the article is one I used to run on a previous website, so I'm just copying that over, rather than creating it for this fight. I will also run the feature again for some fights in the future, and will keep the same format. Therefore I didn't, and won't, introduce "history", because not all contests have a history between the two fighters.

[oliverfennell]

Yes, I am a Harrison supporter, but hopefully people don't mistake that for bias. We all have our favourites (as well as those we dislike) and this is only natural. It shouldn't be a problem so long as we can still assess them fairly.

To that end, have I been generous to Harrison? Well, I'd prefer to think of it more along the lines of being someone who's not too critical. He has a lot of detractors and I'd say a lot of those people are unfair on him to the degree of negative bias. For example, refusing to acknowledge the circumstances of the Sprott rematch, or criticising him for things other UK heavyweights have been guilty of (there's a lot to criticise Danny Williams for, but he gets a pass because he's a "nice bloke").

As it happens I like and support Haye, too, and I also think he comes in for some unfair snipes at times. And finally, for the record, I don't think Harrison did enough to justify a world title shot, nor do I think he'll win it, so hopefully people don't think I'm letting my heart rule my head.

Well if that'sthe case then what do you say to this
"There's no way in hell that Aud is a better combination puncher than Haye, the combination that finished poor Monte Barret at 1.40 of round 5 was a Roy Jones-esque thing of beauty that few Heavyweights could ever throw"

Show me some Harrison combinations.

Hersisia, Williams 1 (late) and 2 and there are other times when he's let them go. Don't forget, he's had some serious repair work done so that will have impacted on his ability to put them together, but he can do it.

Yes, those examples plus quite a lot of good examples from Harrison against "lesser" foes such as Robinson, Nix, Davis, etc. I know they weren't top level guys, but he did indeed throw some awesome combos to end fights, especially earlier in his career. I remember a Boxing News write-up (I can't remember for which fight) comparing his inside work and combinations as a tall heavyweight to that of Riddick Bowe. OK, that may be an exaggeration, but so is comparing Haye to Roy Jones.

[TerribleTerry]

Who would have thought, even two months ago, that people would be drawing comparisons between Harrison and Bowe in terms of fighting ability?

[orbtastic]

Yeah then if Audley loses there will be the inevitable "lack of heart" comparisons etc.