First of all, I have a shocking confession... I am a closet Audley fan Anyway, why did this guy never fulfill his potential? He is mocked now but this guy is an Olympic Gold medalist, very solid fundamentals, quick feet with an awkward style... ... Yet as soon as he took that big right from Danny Williams in there first fight , he didn't seem to ever recover fully in his own mind? I remember The Ring magazine saying Audley was 'the natural successor to Lewis', who could 'dominate the division for years'... obviously this did not happen but he had a fair few people convinced... So what went wrong? If you were his manager how would you of guided him? Just something abit different from the froch,groves and burns threads
He had a very,very amateur style even as a pro that was always going to be difficult to warm him to fans & the BBC deal which put him off the casuals big time.No edge of the seat or wow factor even against journeymen.HW is about hype especially it just never got going for him never would do. Agreed very awkward but has always been gun shy & as you know at HW that fact alone will be exposed big time quickly unless you have real one punch KO power. Bloody good talker & a local fighter to me at least he made some decent coin. To manage him PR wise a dream....gold medalist it got him the BBC deal good luck to him.
He tried to manage himself and would not listen to any one early on, thus he probably pissed most people off who could have giving him a lot of help. Also he looked in awful shape for a fair number of his early fights, guess he just thought he could turn up and win without a problem, but this also im sure pissed people off as he was not taking it that seriously, or that's the way it looked.
The fans possibly would of been more patient with him and his style if he wouldn't of proclaimed as fact he would be a world champion, created a rod for his own back and pressure. Who trained him? He was crying out for a decent trainer to help push him on, work on his defence to protect his chin etc.. I have heard how big headed he was, and that he found it difficult to get fights because he promoted himself...
His style did seem far more suited to the amateur game than the pro, but lets not forget when he won the gold medal he was 29 years old - now I'm not sure how old his opponents were in his olympic medal run, but lets not forget many boxers in the olympics are fairly young. The fact he won the gold medal meant that if he didn't win a world title as a pro, it was always going to mean he would be seen as a bit of a let down. Looking past the gold medal let's not forget the man won British and European titles. What I don't understand about Audley, was why he was gun shy and sometimes it seemed he was almost afraid to pull the trigger. Some performances he would get right into it (look at when he went after Danny Williams in 3 rounds) then in other performances (the Haye fight being the most famous example) he'd near on having an anxiety attack at the thought of throwing a punch.
Any fighter coming out of any Olympics as a gold medalist not proclaiming to be a potential world champion would be shooting themselves in the foot.:good
Ofcourse but he got up alot of peoples noses with the way he did it, his arrogance did not endear him to the public
Too true he talked the talk many times but couldn't back it up gun shy & exposed.If he wasn't a pro fighter would of made a great salesman step forward the hype v Haye!