Audley Harrison - What happened?

He did as well as can be expected.

He was an 'old' Olympic champion, who won in a weak weight division. That said he was in superb form for that Olympics, shame he did not put the same performances in, in other amateur events...

He was considered to have a decent chance in the World Championship before the 2000 Olympics, but guess what? He bottled it, and was too passive...

The reality was the Olympic performances were the exception. Audley got lucky in that, that was what people remember amateur career for, and thus on that evidence were expecting big things from him as a pro.

But from day one things were not quite right. Remember his pro debut against Middleton? What was mentioned pre fight was that there was a rematch clause in the contract if Harrison lost. Do not get me wrong, that is a standard sensible practice by Audley's team at the time. What was not smart was mentioning it to the press. You do not suggest that your Olympic Champion has a safety net against a bouncer and part time 10-10 fighter...

That story in itself is trivial, but it was lots of little bits like that, that undermined Audley almost from day one.

 

When he turned it on you could see what talent there was hidden somewhere!

However it was too few and far between and i believe after the loss to sprott in 2007 he was finished, it was ironic though because he was coming off the fight with willaims where he had knocked him out and when he put sprott down early it really looked like he was going to start building some momentum.

 

i wonder if adam booth could of done anything with audley

 

I think he wanted to create and fulfill his ''destiny'' even from very early on.

He negotiated a contract that would always come back to bite him due to the way he wanted to go about things. He made mistakes and accepts that and that's why i like him.

I think he suffers from some mental illness and that's not a slight on him just a belief i have. His brother was killed i believe, he's lived a bit of a life and things affect people differently and i think the delusional belief has gone to excessive levels due to this.

He already was a successful man without his Olympic triumph. IIRC he ran his own IT company (pretty sure this was very profitable) after leaving Feltham as a young offender he sorted himself out. So outside the ring he was a world class negotiator and very smart at drawing attention to himself.

Sadly the more he drew on BBC the more negative it become, Him and Herbie Hide's antics after one of his fights summed up the BBC era.

When he went onto ITV by then he was public enemy number one with many feeling he destroyed boxing on the BBC. Williams on the other hand was the worse fighter you could pick to put him in with. People have a fondness towards Danny and it was a fight that just had the air of ''humbling'' around it.

It was a fight of small details, The KD handing it to Williams in a pretty poor HW fight in a era littered domestically with some truly feeble and awful efforts (especially on ITV). Williams style would always trouble a fighter like Audley due to the explosiveness of it.

He then went into exile and lost in the U.S to Guinn who was another awful match-up (Guinn featured in that same magazine you mentioned), So his career management was clearly bad and mostly down to himself and sadly it was far to late for him to get himself back on track and repair the damage done.

In saying that Audley did look like things had clicked when he beat Williams albeit at short notice but in rather clinical fashion and then looked in complete cruise control vs Michael Sprott.

The punch that ended that fight, Ended Audley. Before that he wasn't the most offensive fighter but he'd commit to punches but that fight put Audley into a fighting in fear mentality.

He's shown heart, He's not a gutless coward that many would like to believe. His victory over Sprott in the rematch was his crowning moment. It was quickly undone when he faced off with David Haye.

He benefited from the Amateur head guard and pot shot scoring system. He just couldn't cross it over to the professional ranks. He didn't adapt, He simply couldn't or wouldn't. You give them skills to someone else and they'd of made a damn site more of them IMO. Audley has psychological deficiencies, Atlas said during the Guinn fight that he lacked confidence.

It's a case of one step forward and two steps back with Audley sadly. In some ways we really should of known what was to come from Audley in his first ever professional ringwalk against Mike Middleton when he tripped up on the steps into the ring.

 

To be fair, Heavyweights can usually maintain it at the top level at a later age than those in the lower weights.

 

I myself dabbled in pacifism.

 

Right after Harrison got out of the amateurs he became a millionaire and got lazy, that appears to be one reason he went down so fast.

Max Kellerman said on ESPN2 that Audley Harrison was the future of the heavyweight divison, that he would easily beat the Klitschkos. Hmmmmmmmmm...............

 

he got paid to much money off the bbc for fighting stiffs and believed that was boxing
to think the bbc picked big aud over haye or froch ,
who the fu ck from the bbc wrote that contract for big wants fu cking shooting

 

The fact he was gun shy when he could punch made it all the more bizarre. A strange case for sure.