Getting ready to settle in and revisit this trilogy! Anyone see these live and in person or have any memories of these bouts? Just in case anyone wants to revisit them with me: This content is protected This content is protected This content is protected
They were pretty big news here in Australia. The Balboa like comeback of the first fight made Jeff a hero in Australia (along with Fenech) for quite a while. The amount of punishment Harding soaked up that fight was incredible. Harding made a couple of easy defenses before the Andries rematch and was thought to have improved and was favoured over a supposedly declining Andries in the rematch in Melbourne. I remember watching it as a 14 year old with my Dad at the local pub (I was drinking lemon squash of course) with a big crowd there to watch Jeff do the business again. My memory was Harding was just winning the fight when Andries landed some big right hands and knocked him out (the only time Hardings granite chin and cement head failed him). The pub crowd were pretty stunned and disappointed and not all that gracious in their reaction. The third fight was in England and I didn't see that live but read about it afterwards. The Australian media had Harding winning a grueling war clearly but I watched it on youtube years later and it was a great fight but very, very close. As I was only a young fight fan then my memories for years was that Andries was a slick boxer against the tough but crude brawler in Harding. Instead Andries was pretty crude and rough himself just that compared to Harding he looks like Willie Pep lol.
Going through fight I now...what was Emanuel Steward doing to Andries between 6-7? Told him he had him losing, and he needed him to throw more punches? Just a motivational tool or bad corner evaluation? I have Andries up 3 the commentary up 4 both Alan Minter and Michael Watson see Andries ahead the judges scorecards would also indicate the same. + the punch output of both guys was off the charts good. I have to assume Steward knows his fighter better than me + his overall knowledge dwarfs mine as well. But to me Andries seemed discouraged rather than motivated by this speech? Any thoughts?
Seen Andries a couple of times and watched the trilogy as it happened. Two brute strong guys without science. but tons of heart.
I went to the finale and the buzz was Andries was screwed big time. But watching on TV afterwards it was very close, but still as champ and fighting at home I would have thought Andries should have been given the benefit of any doubt.
