Ishé Oluwa Kamau Ali Smith vs. Tony Harrison weigh-in

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Smith is an 11/4 underdog; I find that downright bonkers considering how rough a time he gave both J-Rock & V-Mart (and however fond the late great Manny Steward might have been of the kid, Harrison is no J-Rock nor V-Mart)

 

I agree he's a hell of a 6 round stud, but he still never struck me as more than a cheap pink sheet of carbonless paper (from a pad which boasted Tommy Hearns on the white antiporte, with the name of every "good enough to contend for or grab titles but not quite great" Kronk scion in between scribbled across the yellow).

If you can patiently slog your way past his jab and survive the moderate pop in his 1-2 (and Sugar Shay is nothing if not, on his worst night, a patient slogger with a decent beard) you can accelerate that leak in his gas tank, all the more so if you can work the body and don't mind some roughhousing on the inside, both of which Shay is known to have a taste for...

 

Hurd maybe, guy's just a freak of physicality (and I suspect is a super middleweight wolf in 154lb sheep's clothing; basically a supersized less slick Adrien Broner...only slightly exaggerating here ) - but Willie Nelson though has IMO never from when he first hit the scene had a ceiling higher than what us old farts used to call "FNF co-main event". I think even pushing 40 (lighting those candles in a couple of months, actually) Shay is still demonstrating good enough form to be considered better than him and more capable of getting in the ass of a guy like Harrison between his savvy veteran bag of tricks and willingness to walk through fire to crowd the house-of-cards boxer (rather somewhat archetypical Kronkite, who compulsively needs to be allowed to perform in his comfort zone and control range & pace).

I'd pick Smith to beat Nelson h2h, for instance, FWIW. Hurd, nah, guy's just too goddamn big.

Bottom line is nobody's scoring a 1-punch knockout here, so unless Harrison is able to stay at range and keep it a tidy outside fencing duel for longer than we've ever seen him do, and can prevent a guy who - though not blessed with speed or power, is oozing determination & ring IQ out the wazoo - from getting near him for the full Monty, we're going to see this devolve into a phonebooth scrap, and that definitely favors the guy with more heart.

I think we all know which of these combatants wins hands-down in the heart department.