Monday Night FightZone - Monday Sept 8, 2008
1. 6-8pm AEST- The Sweet Science National Boxing Program
Program #112: This week's Sweet Science weekly boxing program features the following:
- News panel Wrap with Paul Upham, Brad Cooke, Claude "The Black Diamond" Williams and Patrick Skene including breakdown of the Katsidis and Diaz war and last word and picks on the Hopoate v Mirovic heavyweight showdown
Interviews with:
- Sky Ringside supreme Mat Brooks joins us in Studio to talk Katsidis and Diaz and all things boxing
- Former world rated and South Pacific Middleweight champion Paul Toweel pays tribute to his Uncle South African Vic Toweel who passed away last month
- Sports journalist and author Robert Drane for the second hour to discuss his new book "Fighters by Trade" with segments on :
- The origins of Boxing in Australia - The age of mythology
- Young Griffo
- Jack Johnson
- Tszyu vs Judah
- Johnny Famechon
- The Hussein Brothers
- Les Darcy
- Jimmy Carruthers
- Dave Sands
- Lionel Rose
- Jeff Harding
Radio: The Sweet Science Australian National boxing radio program is broadcast live to over 50 stations on the National Indigenous Radio Service including:
- Sydney Koori Radio : 93.7 FM
- Melbourne 3KND : 1503 AM
- Townsville: 4K1G : 107.1 FM
Internet: Listen live on http://www.gadigal.org.au - click on Koori Radio Live at the top of the page. Alternatively listen via our partner sites ww.4k1g.or or http://www.3knd.org.au
Prizes: To win prizes including Don King Wigs, Don King Presents Prizefighter Games and Lonsdale T-shirts from our sponsor Don King presents Prizefighter. To go in the draw Email Brad in 10 words or less why you should win at [email protected]
*****The Sweet Science has been nominated for a Deadly Award***** - The most prestigious award in the land - click here for more info: http://www.vibe.com.au/vote-nominations.asp
2. 11-11.30pm - KOTV on Foxtel Channel 519 (Sky Racing Service)
KOTV is a half hour international weekly boxing news program courtesy of Sky Ringside that previews all the big upcoming fights, highlights of recent fights from across the globe, as well as interviews with legends both past and present.
This weeks show features:
- Next Jermain Taylor opponent super middleweight Jeff"Left Hook" Lacy and Epifanio Mendoza get it on
- 1996 Feature on Andrew Golota vs Riddick Bowe - Feature on 1937 war between Joe "The Brown Bomber" Louis and the real life Cinderella man James A. Braddock
Note : KOTV is repeated at 9am AEST on Wednesday morning
3. 11.30 pm - 12.30am Canvas Classics on Foxtel Channel 519 (Sky Racing Service)
1996 - WBC bantamweight title - Daniel Zaragoza v Joichiro Tatsuyoshi
Monday Night FightZone:Robert Drane, Mat Brooks, Paul Toweel
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OzSweetScience
- Heavyweight
- Posts: 33
- Joined: 08 Jun 2008, 19:28
-
OzSweetScience
- Heavyweight
- Posts: 33
- Joined: 08 Jun 2008, 19:28
Re: Monday Night FightZone:Robert Drane, Mat Brooks, Paul Toweel
Who has read the new book "Fighters by Trade" and what are your thoughts?
I give it 9.25. I wept like ET was leaving after the Hitman chapter titled "One for the yokel'. I remember it so vividly and it brought it back so wonderfully.
Easily my greatest Australian sporting moment followed by Stephen Bradbury and Matthew Mitcham.
An Excerpt below courtesy of ABC Books and we will be giving out a copy of the Book with a trivia question on Monday nights show.
http://shop.abc.net.au/browse/product.a ... tid=165525
Preamble:
Harding as a fighter : Jeff Harding might be called a rigid fighter lacking in footwork; jerky in the heat of battle. When there was space to breach to get to his opponent, he moved forward like the worst dancer on the floor, suddenly alone in the spotlight and searching for rhythm. But he got there his own way. He fought like a smaller version of Gerry Cooney, with a harder head. Two things can be said about Harding as a fighter. He knew he had to take punches, many punches - in order to give them. With blank tenacity, he took the terrible beatings his opponents wanted to give him. He was a fighter so genuinely - as in innocently - tough that his lack of self awareness was astounding. It seemed more than enough for him to remind himself to throw his left hook. But what he did have was a great left hook.
That's the second thing that can be said about Jeff Harding. The left hook was a natural - a rarity and difficult to teach, like the ability to bowl leg spin. Only two white heavyweight champions , Dempsey and Marciano, where not in Ralph Ellison’s words a yokel. Harding fought in a division of black men, and you could almost sense their exasperated disdain turn to side-eyed trepidation as they watched him carve his way through the ranks with those weapons - hard head and a hard left hook. Harding only lost 2 professional fights and won a world title twice in his short professional career. He defended a total of 4 times. In a black man's division, a weight at which no Australian had ever succeeded before, it was a major feat.
Harding the Man: Sometimes he was the affable pug, compassionate, full of the badinage of the gym, expansive. But he’d also been known to threaten people who got too close. Johnny Lewis said ‘You hear about blokes who came up to do stories on Jeff and they packed up the cameras because they got frightened the way he abused them. You know: “You gunna move that fuckin’camera mate or am I gunna shove it up your arse?”
The Fight: Now and again comes a fight that is simultaneously a case for those who want to ban boxing and a showcase for it. - the very reason people go along to watch. Now and again comes a fighter that is both. Jeff ‘Hitman’ Harding was such an ambiguity.
It was luck that got Harding the fight in the first place. Andries was slated to fight glamour yokel Don Lalonde. When Lalonde pulled out with an injury, the TV network insisted that some fight go ahead. Harding was utterly unknown to anyone outside Australia. He was rightly the underdog, his lack of skill and experience obvious to everyone. The Americans knew they were dealing with no fistic phenomenon. His ace was a long way up his sleeve.
But the qualities Harding had cannot be acquired through boxing alone. He’s learned to reject fear and pain. He had the ability to break a man’s heart in a fight; to kill with neglect a man who prides himself on his power. He was enough to make a man superstitious.
To Andries, Harding was nothing. A novice. Fourteen fights. Andries was getting old and hungry for a big payday. Don Lalonde was supposed to provide it. Andries was disappointed when Lalonde pulled out of the fight. He was more disappointed when he heard the name of his opponent. Like everyone else, he’d never heard of Jeff ‘Hitman’ Harding.
Little did we think, as the ring emptied for their arrival, that that hour would unveil one of the great world title wins in boxing history.
Round 1 – Harding’s already beginning the wearing down process, digging a hard rip to Andries liver. But Andries is resilient, coming straight back with another right to the head. Harding’s head is stopping them all consistently. Already. Andries comes in for the kill, but his torso meets a series of clean thuds. When Andries landed, the explosions to Harding’s head were there for all to see. But Harding was quietly, devastatingly excavating Andries chiseled body and hit Andries as much as Andries hit him. Harding’s left eye is almost closed.
Round 2 – The pattern continues. Andries swinging wild, arcing punches, the trajectory of most of them only foreshortened by Harding’s face. Andries’ fires at Harding’s head in a general way, because he know’s he won’t miss. However Harding is getting in more shots to the body than Andries is to the head. He tenaciously continues the method. He can’t alter it. He can only intensify it. He might look bad at times, but Andries’ back is already, tellingly, awash with sweat.
Round 3 – Andries trainer Emmanuel Steward gave him the simplest of instructions; keep your distance and tee off his stationary head. After all Dennis can punch and no one is that tough. He might be right. This simple change of tactic means things aren’t looking good for Jeff. Andries’ punches land with crisp thuds like big salmon thumping onto a wooden deck. But Jeff keeps closing the gap, those lefts and rights to the body keep coming. Yet one of Andries’ headshots could end it at any moment, and therefore Jeff seems to be the one in the most immediate danger. Harding’s getting damaged, Andries is getting tired.
Round 4 – In the other corner Johnny Lewis face said one thing; he wished Andries wasn’t landing quite so often. He’s not ruffled though. Just concerned. Andries lands 3 rights to Harding’s unprotected jaw. These terrible blows keep coming in short, solid arcs. Harding seems like a sapling in a howling gale – completely vulnerable, completely subject to chance. Andries is doing what any fighter dreams of being allowed to do: standing at the right distance and hitting his opponent as hard as he likes and as often as he can. He does it again, and again and again and again and again. He has hit Harding so hard and so often that it’s easy to imagine the Hitman dying on his feet. But nothing is happening. Other than being moved by the sheer force of a punch, Harding has shown nothing. Moving backwards he still digs those persistent pokes into Andries’ body, or unloads a left hook as he’s coming in. A malicious uppercut catches him but Harding will not stop. That’s the message of this round. I don’t know what’s more ridiculous – Andries persistent bullseyes or Harding’s total disregard.
Round 5 – Andries has been given carte blanche by Steward to unload freely with those concussive rights over the top. And why not? All a man can do is land his hardest punches at will. He’s a clubber, little else, and Harding looks as defenceless as a baby seal. But there’s the matter of Harding’s body attack. Harding has had to take these head shots in order to create this masterpiece of body punching. Harding’s head whips back violently.
Harding goes down!
He gets straight up and smiles and shrugs at Johnny without protest. ‘Never hurt!’ he yells. Both corners seem a little fearful . Johnny is quietly urging Jeff to keep his hands up. Steward has the vexed look of a man who’s beginning to discern the outline of a distant threat. For both Lewis and Steward, the resistance of Jeff Harding is a frightening thing. That ability to absorb punishment is not human. Over the other side of the ring, I see even Tyson’s wincing with every blow landed. But Harding’s face is absolutely expressionless. No pain, no hate. Vacant resolve. Harding is sticking to one tactic. When he gets close enough he pulverizes the body. When the body is protected, he goes for the head. Simple as that.
Round 6 – Andries has a pick in each hand and can penetrate the hardest rock. But no one told him he had to dismantle an entire mountain. Even with his back to the ropes Harding persists with his own precise excavation of Andries’ body. These body punches are going to become an issue unless he can stop Harding. But Harding’s head is no longer an issue. It has routinely absorbed frighteningly hard blows, and now seems like a lump of synthetic thermoplastic rubber being pounded without a human brain in there to receive the pain.
Round 7 – Now they’re fighting head to head. Andries never wanted to be here. Now he has no choice. Harding has reduced the fight to this. The tom-tom beat has doubled its tempo now, because Harding is also landing head punches. The sonic impact is spellbinding. Still Andries gets in several of the sort of vicious uppercuts that have killed men. Harding is fighting no differently. Andries stands back to take a look at the damage he has caused, then lurches to his corner after the bell. Harding walks back to his corner like nothing happened.
Round 8 – Andries tossed two more savage shots to Harding’s head, but Harding poked out a simple straight left and Andries backed off. Andries fought back wildly, without calculation, but Harding is breaking Andries’ heart. Harding isn’t tough. Tough men at least feel pain. He is impervious. He hasn’t slowed. His expression hasn’t changed. His demeanour hasn’t changed. The man gives off nothing.
Round 9 – Andries wants to have a round off but Harding is discouraging, the way he comes out as though practicing pit-a-pat punches and foot placement he’s just read about in My First Boxing Manual. It’s all too much for Andries and he steps forward with a solid bolo, and of course it lands and would knock out a lesser man every time. Even with weary arms, Andries punches are solid as though his gloves conceal kettlebells. So many of Andries’ punches are landing now, it’s almost possible to imagine Harding continuing to punch without his head. Fenech shouts frantically at ringside while Tyson smiles his gold toothed smile and shakes his head with delight. This is the sort of violence that excites him.
Round 10 – Outwardly, Harding shows no signs of wear. His nose, his mouth, his eyes bleed. But Andries has done nothing to tire him. Andries just continues to tee off, piling up points. The left hook to Andries’ body was the thousandth, the right to Harding’s head was the thousandth. What do the judges make of all this. Harding must be a frightening spectacle for Andries now, as he keeps advancing, face bloodied, cheeks swollen, expression unchanged. Dig dig dig. He’s a digger alright.
Round 11 – It looks as though Andries has just broken Harding’s nose with another kettlebell right hand that smashed him front on. There is no distinct change to Harding’s pace, despite the deep cherry gore. He only seems capable of doing what Johnny tells him to do, and Johnny’s never mentioned falling down. Harding is backing him up, and after landing two more bombs, Andries seems to wilt. Maybe his heart and liver have at last registered the pain. Harding comes forward pit-a-pat. Andries brain cannot process it all. He swings back desperately, lands a few, but he’s trapped now. The bell gives him respite. Harding’s arms shoot into the air as he strolls jauntily back to his corner. I think he just felt something give.
Round 12 - Last Round. Harding needs a KO to put the result beyond doubt. He looked amazingly passive in the corner while Johnny talked to him excitedly in his own calm way. His eyes didn't flicker or blink, even with blood streaming all around them. His chest didn't heave. Nothing. Johnny talked gently and persistently as though trying to bring him out of a coma. 'Come on son. Let’s get out there. Wear him out and hit him with everything. You're a minute away from the WBC championship. ...A minute!'. That seemed to do it. Harding, like a catatonic aroused from six months stupefaction, shouted something back. A minute! Not three minutes. Even if Johnny didn’t meant it that way, there's belief embedded in those words. Implicit faith is his strength as a trainer. He gives it and inspires it. He seems to believe Andries is going down. He's mentioned nothing about being careful or pacing himself. Harding rose from his stool and just before the bell, Johnny grabbed his arm, pulling him back into the corner. His parting words: 'Go out there and come back the WBC champ.'
Harding's hyped up now. It's all Andries can do to get off his stool. Harding begins the round with a stiff left that sends Andries straight back into a corner. He's ready! He's ready to be knocked over! Harding's not weary, but still seems to be fighting from memory - his punches light, accurate and frequent, as though the nerve-memory of hitting the floor-to-ceiling bag seems to be enough. It is. The lefts and rights come: pit-pat, pit-pat and then , wallop with a body shot. That stings Andries into action and he resumes his head pounding as always, backing Harding into the ropes. Two left hooks, a right uppercut. He feels better. Out in ring centre, a solid right from Andries lands, as usual. But Harding cuffs the side of his head and Andries nightmare begins again. His feet take him backward against the will of his fists.
He takes a breather on the ropes, and Harding sways, cobra-like, in front of him. Andries barely notices Harding setting himself for the purpose of throwing his right hand with all his might.
It strikes him on the jaw and Dennis Andries hits the canvas at last!
He's up at eight, but as Cortez asks him asks him whether he's OK, he doesn't really respond; neither does he know where to look for Harding. He doesn't have to wait long. Pit-a-pat-a-pit-a-pat. He lurches back, arms thrown up, against the rigging as if the ring has just pitched sideways, and bounces on the canvas again. He's up at six. Harding waits in the corner, the right side of his face barely visible through the blood. Andries stands precariously and waited for the inevitable. It's not a matter of technique now. Only an instinct more ancient than skill keeps him fighting now. The same instinct that killed Benny Paret against Emile Griffith. Harding runs in. Andries greets him with a left hook. A rare miss. Of Harding's flurry, it seems not a punch lands, yet it's more than Andries can stand. He buckles into the ropes where a right and a left brush his face.
Cortez has seen enough. He grabs Harding from behind. Andries, like some dogged honey badger in the Lion's maw, has one more go on his way out - a left hook that brushes Harding's chops and still seems hard enough to give pause. But it’s over! Harding runs to his corner and Johnny frames his bleeding face with his rubber-gloved hands. Jeff stares wildly into Johnny's eyes and yells something intensely, as though the last of his sanity has left him. Is he crying? Laughing? Agitated? Incredible! Tyson and Fenech embrace. The Atlantic City Crowd, a bunch of jaded gamblers who seemed so indifferent when the fight began, now seemed thrilled and inspired, loving the feeling, as though they've rediscovered luck!
Archie Moore...Bob Foster...Michael Spinks...Jeff Harding! Who'd have thought it? Jeff Harding, the Hitman, has unbelievably, joined the company of light heavyweight greats.
Share the loot Bradman!. Lets have a Harding museum as well!
I give it 9.25. I wept like ET was leaving after the Hitman chapter titled "One for the yokel'. I remember it so vividly and it brought it back so wonderfully.
Easily my greatest Australian sporting moment followed by Stephen Bradbury and Matthew Mitcham.
An Excerpt below courtesy of ABC Books and we will be giving out a copy of the Book with a trivia question on Monday nights show.
http://shop.abc.net.au/browse/product.a ... tid=165525
Preamble:
Harding as a fighter : Jeff Harding might be called a rigid fighter lacking in footwork; jerky in the heat of battle. When there was space to breach to get to his opponent, he moved forward like the worst dancer on the floor, suddenly alone in the spotlight and searching for rhythm. But he got there his own way. He fought like a smaller version of Gerry Cooney, with a harder head. Two things can be said about Harding as a fighter. He knew he had to take punches, many punches - in order to give them. With blank tenacity, he took the terrible beatings his opponents wanted to give him. He was a fighter so genuinely - as in innocently - tough that his lack of self awareness was astounding. It seemed more than enough for him to remind himself to throw his left hook. But what he did have was a great left hook.
That's the second thing that can be said about Jeff Harding. The left hook was a natural - a rarity and difficult to teach, like the ability to bowl leg spin. Only two white heavyweight champions , Dempsey and Marciano, where not in Ralph Ellison’s words a yokel. Harding fought in a division of black men, and you could almost sense their exasperated disdain turn to side-eyed trepidation as they watched him carve his way through the ranks with those weapons - hard head and a hard left hook. Harding only lost 2 professional fights and won a world title twice in his short professional career. He defended a total of 4 times. In a black man's division, a weight at which no Australian had ever succeeded before, it was a major feat.
Harding the Man: Sometimes he was the affable pug, compassionate, full of the badinage of the gym, expansive. But he’d also been known to threaten people who got too close. Johnny Lewis said ‘You hear about blokes who came up to do stories on Jeff and they packed up the cameras because they got frightened the way he abused them. You know: “You gunna move that fuckin’camera mate or am I gunna shove it up your arse?”
The Fight: Now and again comes a fight that is simultaneously a case for those who want to ban boxing and a showcase for it. - the very reason people go along to watch. Now and again comes a fighter that is both. Jeff ‘Hitman’ Harding was such an ambiguity.
It was luck that got Harding the fight in the first place. Andries was slated to fight glamour yokel Don Lalonde. When Lalonde pulled out with an injury, the TV network insisted that some fight go ahead. Harding was utterly unknown to anyone outside Australia. He was rightly the underdog, his lack of skill and experience obvious to everyone. The Americans knew they were dealing with no fistic phenomenon. His ace was a long way up his sleeve.
But the qualities Harding had cannot be acquired through boxing alone. He’s learned to reject fear and pain. He had the ability to break a man’s heart in a fight; to kill with neglect a man who prides himself on his power. He was enough to make a man superstitious.
To Andries, Harding was nothing. A novice. Fourteen fights. Andries was getting old and hungry for a big payday. Don Lalonde was supposed to provide it. Andries was disappointed when Lalonde pulled out of the fight. He was more disappointed when he heard the name of his opponent. Like everyone else, he’d never heard of Jeff ‘Hitman’ Harding.
Little did we think, as the ring emptied for their arrival, that that hour would unveil one of the great world title wins in boxing history.
Round 1 – Harding’s already beginning the wearing down process, digging a hard rip to Andries liver. But Andries is resilient, coming straight back with another right to the head. Harding’s head is stopping them all consistently. Already. Andries comes in for the kill, but his torso meets a series of clean thuds. When Andries landed, the explosions to Harding’s head were there for all to see. But Harding was quietly, devastatingly excavating Andries chiseled body and hit Andries as much as Andries hit him. Harding’s left eye is almost closed.
Round 2 – The pattern continues. Andries swinging wild, arcing punches, the trajectory of most of them only foreshortened by Harding’s face. Andries’ fires at Harding’s head in a general way, because he know’s he won’t miss. However Harding is getting in more shots to the body than Andries is to the head. He tenaciously continues the method. He can’t alter it. He can only intensify it. He might look bad at times, but Andries’ back is already, tellingly, awash with sweat.
Round 3 – Andries trainer Emmanuel Steward gave him the simplest of instructions; keep your distance and tee off his stationary head. After all Dennis can punch and no one is that tough. He might be right. This simple change of tactic means things aren’t looking good for Jeff. Andries’ punches land with crisp thuds like big salmon thumping onto a wooden deck. But Jeff keeps closing the gap, those lefts and rights to the body keep coming. Yet one of Andries’ headshots could end it at any moment, and therefore Jeff seems to be the one in the most immediate danger. Harding’s getting damaged, Andries is getting tired.
Round 4 – In the other corner Johnny Lewis face said one thing; he wished Andries wasn’t landing quite so often. He’s not ruffled though. Just concerned. Andries lands 3 rights to Harding’s unprotected jaw. These terrible blows keep coming in short, solid arcs. Harding seems like a sapling in a howling gale – completely vulnerable, completely subject to chance. Andries is doing what any fighter dreams of being allowed to do: standing at the right distance and hitting his opponent as hard as he likes and as often as he can. He does it again, and again and again and again and again. He has hit Harding so hard and so often that it’s easy to imagine the Hitman dying on his feet. But nothing is happening. Other than being moved by the sheer force of a punch, Harding has shown nothing. Moving backwards he still digs those persistent pokes into Andries’ body, or unloads a left hook as he’s coming in. A malicious uppercut catches him but Harding will not stop. That’s the message of this round. I don’t know what’s more ridiculous – Andries persistent bullseyes or Harding’s total disregard.
Round 5 – Andries has been given carte blanche by Steward to unload freely with those concussive rights over the top. And why not? All a man can do is land his hardest punches at will. He’s a clubber, little else, and Harding looks as defenceless as a baby seal. But there’s the matter of Harding’s body attack. Harding has had to take these head shots in order to create this masterpiece of body punching. Harding’s head whips back violently.
Harding goes down!
He gets straight up and smiles and shrugs at Johnny without protest. ‘Never hurt!’ he yells. Both corners seem a little fearful . Johnny is quietly urging Jeff to keep his hands up. Steward has the vexed look of a man who’s beginning to discern the outline of a distant threat. For both Lewis and Steward, the resistance of Jeff Harding is a frightening thing. That ability to absorb punishment is not human. Over the other side of the ring, I see even Tyson’s wincing with every blow landed. But Harding’s face is absolutely expressionless. No pain, no hate. Vacant resolve. Harding is sticking to one tactic. When he gets close enough he pulverizes the body. When the body is protected, he goes for the head. Simple as that.
Round 6 – Andries has a pick in each hand and can penetrate the hardest rock. But no one told him he had to dismantle an entire mountain. Even with his back to the ropes Harding persists with his own precise excavation of Andries’ body. These body punches are going to become an issue unless he can stop Harding. But Harding’s head is no longer an issue. It has routinely absorbed frighteningly hard blows, and now seems like a lump of synthetic thermoplastic rubber being pounded without a human brain in there to receive the pain.
Round 7 – Now they’re fighting head to head. Andries never wanted to be here. Now he has no choice. Harding has reduced the fight to this. The tom-tom beat has doubled its tempo now, because Harding is also landing head punches. The sonic impact is spellbinding. Still Andries gets in several of the sort of vicious uppercuts that have killed men. Harding is fighting no differently. Andries stands back to take a look at the damage he has caused, then lurches to his corner after the bell. Harding walks back to his corner like nothing happened.
Round 8 – Andries tossed two more savage shots to Harding’s head, but Harding poked out a simple straight left and Andries backed off. Andries fought back wildly, without calculation, but Harding is breaking Andries’ heart. Harding isn’t tough. Tough men at least feel pain. He is impervious. He hasn’t slowed. His expression hasn’t changed. His demeanour hasn’t changed. The man gives off nothing.
Round 9 – Andries wants to have a round off but Harding is discouraging, the way he comes out as though practicing pit-a-pat punches and foot placement he’s just read about in My First Boxing Manual. It’s all too much for Andries and he steps forward with a solid bolo, and of course it lands and would knock out a lesser man every time. Even with weary arms, Andries punches are solid as though his gloves conceal kettlebells. So many of Andries’ punches are landing now, it’s almost possible to imagine Harding continuing to punch without his head. Fenech shouts frantically at ringside while Tyson smiles his gold toothed smile and shakes his head with delight. This is the sort of violence that excites him.
Round 10 – Outwardly, Harding shows no signs of wear. His nose, his mouth, his eyes bleed. But Andries has done nothing to tire him. Andries just continues to tee off, piling up points. The left hook to Andries’ body was the thousandth, the right to Harding’s head was the thousandth. What do the judges make of all this. Harding must be a frightening spectacle for Andries now, as he keeps advancing, face bloodied, cheeks swollen, expression unchanged. Dig dig dig. He’s a digger alright.
Round 11 – It looks as though Andries has just broken Harding’s nose with another kettlebell right hand that smashed him front on. There is no distinct change to Harding’s pace, despite the deep cherry gore. He only seems capable of doing what Johnny tells him to do, and Johnny’s never mentioned falling down. Harding is backing him up, and after landing two more bombs, Andries seems to wilt. Maybe his heart and liver have at last registered the pain. Harding comes forward pit-a-pat. Andries brain cannot process it all. He swings back desperately, lands a few, but he’s trapped now. The bell gives him respite. Harding’s arms shoot into the air as he strolls jauntily back to his corner. I think he just felt something give.
Round 12 - Last Round. Harding needs a KO to put the result beyond doubt. He looked amazingly passive in the corner while Johnny talked to him excitedly in his own calm way. His eyes didn't flicker or blink, even with blood streaming all around them. His chest didn't heave. Nothing. Johnny talked gently and persistently as though trying to bring him out of a coma. 'Come on son. Let’s get out there. Wear him out and hit him with everything. You're a minute away from the WBC championship. ...A minute!'. That seemed to do it. Harding, like a catatonic aroused from six months stupefaction, shouted something back. A minute! Not three minutes. Even if Johnny didn’t meant it that way, there's belief embedded in those words. Implicit faith is his strength as a trainer. He gives it and inspires it. He seems to believe Andries is going down. He's mentioned nothing about being careful or pacing himself. Harding rose from his stool and just before the bell, Johnny grabbed his arm, pulling him back into the corner. His parting words: 'Go out there and come back the WBC champ.'
Harding's hyped up now. It's all Andries can do to get off his stool. Harding begins the round with a stiff left that sends Andries straight back into a corner. He's ready! He's ready to be knocked over! Harding's not weary, but still seems to be fighting from memory - his punches light, accurate and frequent, as though the nerve-memory of hitting the floor-to-ceiling bag seems to be enough. It is. The lefts and rights come: pit-pat, pit-pat and then , wallop with a body shot. That stings Andries into action and he resumes his head pounding as always, backing Harding into the ropes. Two left hooks, a right uppercut. He feels better. Out in ring centre, a solid right from Andries lands, as usual. But Harding cuffs the side of his head and Andries nightmare begins again. His feet take him backward against the will of his fists.
He takes a breather on the ropes, and Harding sways, cobra-like, in front of him. Andries barely notices Harding setting himself for the purpose of throwing his right hand with all his might.
It strikes him on the jaw and Dennis Andries hits the canvas at last!
He's up at eight, but as Cortez asks him asks him whether he's OK, he doesn't really respond; neither does he know where to look for Harding. He doesn't have to wait long. Pit-a-pat-a-pit-a-pat. He lurches back, arms thrown up, against the rigging as if the ring has just pitched sideways, and bounces on the canvas again. He's up at six. Harding waits in the corner, the right side of his face barely visible through the blood. Andries stands precariously and waited for the inevitable. It's not a matter of technique now. Only an instinct more ancient than skill keeps him fighting now. The same instinct that killed Benny Paret against Emile Griffith. Harding runs in. Andries greets him with a left hook. A rare miss. Of Harding's flurry, it seems not a punch lands, yet it's more than Andries can stand. He buckles into the ropes where a right and a left brush his face.
Cortez has seen enough. He grabs Harding from behind. Andries, like some dogged honey badger in the Lion's maw, has one more go on his way out - a left hook that brushes Harding's chops and still seems hard enough to give pause. But it’s over! Harding runs to his corner and Johnny frames his bleeding face with his rubber-gloved hands. Jeff stares wildly into Johnny's eyes and yells something intensely, as though the last of his sanity has left him. Is he crying? Laughing? Agitated? Incredible! Tyson and Fenech embrace. The Atlantic City Crowd, a bunch of jaded gamblers who seemed so indifferent when the fight began, now seemed thrilled and inspired, loving the feeling, as though they've rediscovered luck!
Archie Moore...Bob Foster...Michael Spinks...Jeff Harding! Who'd have thought it? Jeff Harding, the Hitman, has unbelievably, joined the company of light heavyweight greats.
Share the loot Bradman!. Lets have a Harding museum as well!