Harrison-McCullough Preview

Photo © Tom Casino/Showtime
Challenger Wayne McCullough weighed 125 pounds and Scott Harrison tipped scales at 125 3/4 Friday in Scotland.
Harrison defends his WBO featherweight title against McCullough tomorrow on SHOWTIME (11 p.m. ET/PT) in Glasgow.

by Jeff Day

22.03 - Potentially, it is Britain's fight of the year despite the fact we are only in March. On Saturday 22 March in Glasgow, Scott Harrison makes his first defence of the WBO Featherweight Championship that he won in October last year against Julio Pablo Chacon.

For Wayne McCulllough, this is surely the last chance to claim a version of the featherweight title. At 32, the Irishman knows he is going to have to produce his very best form to deal with the uncompromising Scot. The champion seems to be moving into his prime at 25.

There has been trash talking on both sides and that should give what is already a quality match-up even more spice. Harrison's manager, Frank Maloney, claims that Harrison is the best fighter he has been involved with: high praise indeed when you consider Maloney was manager of current World Heavyweight Champion Lennox Lewis, until an acrimonious split from Lewis.

Scott has a record of 18 wins, 1 loss and one draw. The defeat was a fourth round cut eye loss to Welsh journeyman Miguel Matthews in his fourth fight in October 1997. The draw was in his next fight, when he travelled to France to meet Stephane Fernandez in December 1997.

His progress in the last five years has been exceptional. Trained by father Peter, himself a former fighter he claimed the IBO Intercontinental bauble in his tenth fight against the tough Ghanaian Smith Odoom. It was the first time Harrison had gone the twelve round championship distance. That was in July 1999.

In January 2000, Patrick Mullings was beaten over twelve rounds for the Commonwealth Title. Maloney then made a bold move in securing a match against veteran former two weight World Champion Tracy Harris Patterson. The fight, which took place at New York's Madison Square Garden, was invaluable experience to Harrison.

Harrison prevailed by ten round decision in the April 2000 bout. Patterson may have been past his best, but Harrison proved he had the character and desire to succeed many miles from home against a well-respected and ringwise campaigner.

Making the right fight at the right time is an art in itself. Mickey Duff was a past master at it. The Patterson fight came at the perfect time for Harrison and three months later he would take on another former title-holder, Tom "Boom Boom" Johnson. Again the timing was of the essence. Three years earlier Johnson had come to Britain to meet Naseem Hamed. Hamed was too fast and powerful for the American and knocked him out in the eighth.

Harrison is more conventional. A busy box fighter, who has excellent skills and workrate, though without the flamboyant unorthodox style or power of the self styled "Prince". Scott was taken the full twelve rounds by Johnson, but won a clear decision. He also retained the meaningless IBO Intercontinental Title.

In terms of the learning curve and gaining experience money cannot buy, the fights against Patterson and Johnson were worth their weight in gold. It showed Scott had the temperament and stamina to do ten or twelve good, hard rounds. It also showed he had good powers of concentration over the long haul.

A further five defences of the Commonwealth Title have been made, including a third round stoppage win over ex WBO boss Steve Robinson. In June 2002, Scott met Victor Santiago for the "Interim" WBO Featherweight crown. Harrison should have been fighting the champion, Julio Pablo Chacon, but he withdrew with an injury. Instead, he took his frustrations out on his Puerto Rican opponent in their fight in Glasgow.

Harrison was superb in winning on a sixth round stoppage. Again, it showed real professionalism for Scott to keep himself motivated despite the bitter disappointment of the Chacon fight falling through, albeit temporarily.

And now, with delayed coverage on Showtime in the United States, comes Scott Harrison's defining fight against "The Pocket Rocket", Wayne McCullough.

Wayne was a silver medallist at the Barcelona Olympics and a former WBC Champion at both bantamweight and super-bantamweight. Is he ripe for the taking against a young and hungry champion? Is he even a featherweight?

Wayne was inactive between October 1999 and January 2002 because the British Boxing Board of Control raised a query concerning McCullough's medical well being. In a routine brain scan, a cyst, the size of a pinprick was discovered on Wayne's brain and his licence was taken away. He was more shaken by that awful news than by any punch he ever received in his excellent career.

However, being the fighter he was meant that Wayne looked for further medical opinion. He never contested that a cyst existed: he just wanted to prove that he was at no more risk than any other boxer. There was mixed opinion: was Wayne at any more risk than any other fighter? Should anything happen to Wayne as a result of punches taken in the ring, surely boxing would find itself in an indefensible position.

As it turned out, McCullough was cleared to box again and signed a deal with Frank Warren. When he had turned professional back in 1993, the Irishman based himself in the states and was trained by the late, but truly great, Eddie Futch and his able sidekick Thel Torrance. It was clear that Wayne was serious about making an assault on professional honours.

He turned professional in February 1993 and fought ten times in his first year! It was clear for all to see that the philosophy of the McCullough camp was "to rest is to rust". In fight number 11 he annexed the NABF Bantamweight Title with a 7th round knockout of Javier Medina.

In just his 13th bout, he was beating Victor Rabanales on a unanimous decision in June 1994. Just two fights and 15 months earlier, Victor was fighting for the World Championship.

Three more wins followed and Wayne was deemed ready to challenge for the WBC Bantamweight Title. He would have to go to Japan to face Yasuei Yakushiji on 30 July 1995. It was fight I felt McCullough won clearly, but in the other man's backyard you get no favours. At the end of 12 rounds, the Belfastman was a split decision winner.

His first defence five months later was against Johnny Bredahl. It would be a homecoming for Wayne, as the fight took place in Belfast. It was only his second professional outing in his home city. The victory, in eight rounds, looks even better today, when you consider Bredahl is now reigning WBA Bantamweight Champion 7 years later.

McCullough made one more successful defence (against Jose Luis Bueno in Dublin), before moving up to super-bantamweight to challenge veteran tough guy and teak-tough Mexican Daniel Zaragoza. The Mexican looked a good deal older than the 29 years he was. However, he was ringwise enough to eke out a split decision over McCullough and inflict a first defeat on the Irishman in January 1997.

After a couple of wins, Wayne once again moved up in weight to challenge then unbeaten Naseem Hamed for the WBO Featherweight crown. It was a fight the McCullough craved and it took place in Atlantic City on 31 October 1998.

The Irishman's granite chin would surely now be put to the test by the sleep inducing punches of the champion. It was soon apparent that Hamed was content to box his way to a decision when he realised that Wayne was not going to fall under his normally lethal punches or be intimidated by any of his antics.

Still, although Wayne landed some decent shots, he didn't have the power to take Naz out. What he did do though, was prove what a fantastic chin he has got to go with his tremendous workrate. Hamed won a twelve round decision.

Again, Wayne had to regroup. After a ten round win over Len Martinez in Vegas, McCullough dropped down to super-bantamweight again to challenge Erik Morales for the WBC Title, almost a year to the day since the Hamed fight. For Morales, this was looked upon as a tune up for his February 2000 epic against Marco Antonio Barrera.

Erik had taken the title from McCullough's old for Zaragoza eight months after Daniel had beaten Wayne. It would be Morales' 7th defence. Once again, a McCullough opponent found the chin to tough to dent, but the Mexican did enough over twelve rounds to get the twelve round decision.

There then followed the long layoff before Wayne could get medical clearance. And now, with three inside the distance wins in 2002, comes another and surely last opportunity for McCullough.

There are many questions surrounding the fight: is Harrison really an 'A' grade fighter, which is what the challenger and his manager/wife Cheryl have questioned? Has Wayne already fought better men than Harrison and won? How much has Wayne left? Is he strong enough at featherweight? Is Harrison the 'Real McCoy'? Can he deal with the workrate of his challenger? Will Scott get frustrated if he cannot budge Wayne?

It is a tough one to call. I think though, that Harrison, with home advantage and being the man on the way up, is likely to have too much strength, ambition and desire for Wayne, who may find he has gone to the well once to often and now finds it empty. It's likely to fierce and competitive, but I go for Scott to win by a hard-fought unanimous 12 round decision.