Suddenly, Fraudley v Has-Been is a battle of serious contendersBy Sue Mott Last Updated: 11:51pm GMT 05/12/2005 By some strange process, perhaps mass hypnosis, we seem to be looking forward to a boxing match on Saturday between Danny Williams and Audley Harrison. This is an extraordinary development. One minute we were viewing Williams as a has-been lacking bottle, after he pulled out of his last fight with something he called "flu", and Harrison as a celebrity-struck "Fraudley", following his grapples with a succession of static punchbags for which the BBC kindly paid him £10 million. Yet put them together - or rather let promoter Frank Warren put them together with Amir Khan on the undercard - and the ExCel in London sells out. Clearly Warren's powers are more unearthly than anything Uri Geller could manage. Harrison did not seem to have the strength to bend a spoon a year ago, now he is being touted as a future heavyweight champion of the world. advertisement Is this for real? According to Barry McGuigan, the former World Boxing Association featherweight world champion who is analyst for the fight on ITV1 next week, it is. "I really peed Audley off because I said he fought too many innocuous opponents. I said it was time to get his finger out. If you look up 'procrastination' in the dictionary, there's a picture of Audley Harrison. "But I think he's very talented. You have to be to win the Olympic gold medal and I think he can produce the goods. Without doubt for a while he was overtaken by his celebrity status. They rolled out the red carpet. They asked him to parties. He wasn't keen on the grind of training any more. "Then the BBC were a bit silly in allowing him to promote his own fights. If that happens you're going to take the taxi driver from Estonia and the road sweeper from Venezuela. That's what happened with Audley and I don't really blame him. But now he has got to take some really top fights." Whether Williams is a really top fighter takes some believing. Take the past two years: he lost to unrated Michael Sprott to lose the British title, he beat what remains of Mike Tyson, he suffered a crushing defeat by Vitali Klitschko, he beat an unknown Hungarian, he withdrew hours before the fight with Mark Skelton. Are these the footsteps of Ali? Doubtful. But then, how did Harrison get billed as a serious contender? When he left in a huff for America, after Britain's failure to see his successive defeats of large logs as impressive, even Warren was calling him "Fraudley". Or "Ordinary" Harrison. Clearly something has happened to change all this. "It's time for Harrison to make a big noise," McGuigan claimed, "because the heavyweight division has never been as wide open. In my opinion, it's in the worst state I've seen in my lifetime. Vitali Klitschko has thrown in the towel in a petulant fit. Chris Byrd, the IBF champion, is boring, elusive and small. John Ruiz, the WBA champion, retired after he was beaten by James Toney until he discovered that Toney tested positive for anabolic steroids, Hasim Rahman, the WBC champion, has been injured a number of times and Lamon Brewster is an OK fighter, but nothing special." Suddenly, you can see why Harrison, always a pretty face, is looking rather lovely in other regards. The heavyweight division is distinctly underweight, except in the matter of dodgy track records. Someone with an upper cut and largish body could clear this lot out in a minute. The nicknames give you a clue. "Quietman" Ruiz - a man of slow, infrequent punching who has a habit of grabbing his opponent's arm to prevent an onslaught. "Rapid Fire" Byrd - the polite way of saying "little and often" since he looks seriously underpowered. Too big to be a cruiserweight, too small to be serious in the heavyweight division. "Relentless" Brewster's claim to fame is knocking out Wladimir Klitschko, Vitali's younger brother, in April 2004. The story is downgraded, however, when you know that Klitschko was taken to hospital afterwards with abnormally high blood sugar levels and insisted later that he had been drugged. The blood samples inexplicably disappeared. "The Rock" Rahman did, admittedly, once defeat our own Lennox Lewis in South Africa, but possibly when Lewis seemed not to be at his best. "What's the best thing about your life since becoming the heavyweight champion of the world?" Rahman was asked. "No bills," he replied. No bills is the reason most fighters fight. That and ego. "That is the single biggest issue," McGuigan said. "Fighters really need counselling. The ego is a bigger drug than cocaine." But McGuigan fought his ego and won. He retired at 29 when he felt his skills beginning to diminish. "My split-second timing was going. I was on the precipitous path downwards. There was no point being fodder to the kids coming up. It's a young man's sport." Harrison is 33. "Yes, but he's young for his age. He's fresh. He's not got many miles on the clock. He's only had 19 fights. Yes, he's fought for the WBF heavyweight title but you could buy those in Tesco. They're rubbish. The truth is he's got to start taking good fights. He is brave, a good puncher, but he's got leaden legs. It's his chance. He'd better go out and grasp it." So is this a boxing match or a springboard for the sport's revamped matinee idol? Warren rejects absolutely the notion of a fixed fight. "You've had jockeys throwing races, hopes doped, football matches rigged, cricket balls tampered with, all those scandals, but you have not had a crooked fight." What about Harrison's fall guys? "That's because the BBC empowered him to make his own matches. There was no quality control. They made a complete balls-up." Unlike Harrison versus Williams, set to make a complete fortune. Warren is certain that the fight will achieve ITV1's largest viewing figure of the year. Somebody somewhere has been very clever, and it probably isn't Harrison or Williams. Memories make the Best tributes The scenes of George Best's all-but-state funeral continue to be matched by remembrances. Here are two. "There was one young man who was wonderful and rescued the day many years ago when a friend of mine, a site engineer, held an open day to thank local people for their patience following the building of a large chemical plant in their area. Steady rain was falling. The 'personalities' made for the private room and stayed there. But this young man was out in the rain all the time, soaked to the skin, playing football with the children, laughing and joking with the mums and dads, signing autographs for anyone who asked. He was the last to leave and my friend thanked him profusely. He just grinned and said he enjoyed it. My friend has a rudimentary knowledge of sport. He said: 'I can't remember his name but he's a footballer. I think his first name was George'." (From Geoff Durward, Northamptonshire). "I do strongly disagree that he was 'Britain's greatest footballer'. He was, for example, a mediocre header of the ball and a poor team player, frequently driving his colleagues to distraction by hanging on to the ball when he should have passed it. In my view, Stanley Matthews was a much better player. I saw him often, for Blackpool and Stoke. He had even better tight control than Best and was a much superior team player. Had Matthews had Best's looks (and lifestyle?) I suspect history's judgment would have been very different." (From a former top-level referee, London).
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