Harrison Brought Down To Earth As Medina Takes His Title

By G L Taylor

13.07 - The aspiration’s of Scotland’s Scott Harrison to become one of the major players in world featherweight boxing were severely dented in Renfrew’s Braehead arena, when veteran Mexican Manuel Medina gave him something of a boxing lesson and ripped away his WBO Featherweight crown.

Harrison, in front of massive home support was expected by most to comfortably pass this latest test, with many tipping his size and strength to be too much for the ageing and battle-wearied Mexican whom many felt was a boxer on the slide after a comprehensive beating at the hands of compatriot Juan Manuel Marquez in February of this year.

With the Scottish fans in full voice, the fight got underway in an electric atmosphere, with Medina looking every inch the battle-hardened warrior that he is, while Harrison looked as usual as though he had to punish his body somewhat to fit his frame into the weight limit.

The champion’s start wasn’t the best either, as the first round went the way of the challenger (who, at the age of 32 is seven years Harrison’s’ elder), with Medina settling into an early rhythm that had him dancing and moving loosely around the ring, flicking out the jab and following up with straight rights, which although not massive in their power were often finding the target.

Harrison by comparison was somewhat static looking and largely threw only single shots, and his own lack of head-movement allowed many of Medina’s shots to connect, as he tried to walk his was forward onto an opponent who was getting in and out when landing his punches, and refusing to present the champion with a stationary target.

The second followed a similar pattern with Harrison looking uncharacteristically flat and not the bullish and ice-cold marauder who comprehensively defeated Wayne McCullough four months previously. This was largely due to Medina presenting him with a style of hitting and moving that he has not previously encountered and the Scot looked as though he was having real problems adjusting to this as he struggled to find any sort of range against his taller opponent. Medina was again the busier of the two men, throwing more punches, though Harrison was given some hope towards then end of the round when a couple of solid left hooks got through, but really they were his only success of note in the second.

The champion seemed to rally a little in the third though; as although Medina’s movement and hand-speed were still causing problems, Harrison started doubling and tripling his jab and at one point seemed to cause a slight wobble in the Mexican’s legs with a sharp left hand to the head. There was a noticeable shift also in Harrison’ tactics, as he focused a couple of left-right hook combinations to the body of the nimble-footed Mexican, presumably in an attempt to begin taking some of the air out of him and slowing him down. Medina was still throwing a greater number of punches, but Harrison’s overall work in this round was cleaner, and he did enough to take the round.

However after a good third round, Harrison failed to capitalise in the fourth, which slipped back into the pattern of the opening two rounds, despite a good start from Harrison, who at the outset looked to be getting his jab working and also landed a couple of good left hooks, and focusing on the body again but after the first minute of the round, he had seemingly become mesmerised by his opponents movement and footwork, and as Medina circled and moved in and out of range, he ensured that he was peppering the face of the champion with a series of jabs and straight right-hands, capitalising further on Harrison’s lack of upper-body movement. Harrison was prevented from coming forward onto Medina further and setting himself for any heavy shots by the repeated bursts of punches coming at him from his opponent.

Harrison seemed to come back a little stronger in the next round though, and despite Medina maintaining his rhythm and causing problems by the shots he was flicking out, it was the Scottish fighter who was the more effective here, as again he established a good jab, and landed one hard right hook that rattled Medina for a second or so. While Harrison was not looking particularly vintage, there were some signs that he my have just been starting to get a foothold in the fight. That notion though, was dispelled in the next round as it was Medina again who controlled proceedings. Harrison again had sporadic successes with left hooks to both head and body, but Medina was largely evading most of his shots and was often beating him to the punch, putting quick combinations of straight punches together, causing blood to begin trickling from Harrison’s nose. Harrison landed some harder-looking shots just before the bell, but was heavily outworked for the bulk of the round.

An explosive start from Harrison followed at the beginning of round seven, as he was finally able to at last back his opponent into a corner and unload a series of combinations, that looked as though they could be troubling, though after Medina escaped the barrage, Harrison failed to apply anymore constant pressure for the rest of the round and again, it was one that Medina was able to steal as he eased himself back into his rhythm and assumed control one more from behind his effective jab.

By the end of the round, the blood from Harrison’s nose was somewhat more prominent, and he seemed to be struggling for air more, as he held his mouth wide open and looked to suck in deep breaths.

A similar pattern followed again in the next round (though this time without the Harrison pressure) and was a great display by the challenger of combining lateral movement with effective boxing, centred around the jab. Things were going from bad to worse for Harrison by this stage as he also suffered a small cut above his left eye and the only real threatening offensive work that came from him was again in the closing seconds and was not enough to take the round.

It was looking by this stage as though there wasn’t a ‘Plan B’ of any sort being implemented by Harrison, who continued to persevere with the same straight-on approach, and to his credit, with what appeared to be a huge application of effort, he was able to take the ninth round by relentlessly stalking the Tijuana native and delivering a number of powerful combinations, and was finding more success with left and right hooks to the head. Medina stuck to his game-plan but was less effective under the pressure of the champion.

In the tenth, Harrison still looked to be trying incredibly hard, but Medina was out-landing him, again utilising effective combinations of straight punches and displaying a sound jab to keep Harrison out of his stride. Harrison was still having some success, and was landing harder shots, but he seemed to land a lot less frequently and didn’t appear as accurate as he has done in previous contests. The following round saw Harrison often swinging wildly, with little success, by this point perhaps realising that he needed a stoppage to retain his title. Medina though was still finding success with his heavily movement based strategy, and stuck rigidly to it once again, showing that even in his aging limbs that there is still plenty of energy. The champion had some success with left and right hooks to the head once more in the rounds’ closing seconds, but was clearly starting to show the effects of Medina’s constant punching, as his left eye had now become swollen and grazed, adding to the cut that had been inflicted earlier.

Harrison looked absolutely exhausted by the start of the final round, but still managed to try stalking down his man for a final assault and n attempt at clinging onto his title. There was a good left-to-right hook combination that Harrison got through with, but ultimately, Medina got through the round unruffled, before we got to the judges scorecards.

The biggest surprise with the scorecards was that one of the judges, Larry Hazzard Junior, had awarded the fight to Harrison by two rounds, which, considering the way the fight went was quite baffling, however, the right result was ensured by judges Roy Francis and Melvina Lathan, who scored in Medina’s favour by five and four rounds respectively.

For Medina, the win means that his career at a high level will continue further, as he proved, and not for the first time in his career, that after a defeat he should never-ever be written off, and he now holds the wonderful distinction of being a five-time world champion.

For Harrison though, this fight represents a thinking point for him and his team, who must now evaluate just what went wrong.

Was it just ‘a bad day at the office’ as his promoter Frank Maloney claimed in the post-fight interview, or are there other areas that need to be addressed, as rumours had been circulating about perhaps the fact that Harrison had trained overly-hard or had difficulty in making the weight.

Perhaps a step up to super-feather is the next step from here, or if he is comfortable at the weight, he may opt for a rematch with Medina, though work will have to be done on how he copes with the Mexican’s style, as he appeared to have very few answers for it on this showing.

One thing that is for certain now, is that all talk of a lucrative match-up with the featherweight divisions’ dominant star, Marco-Antonio Barrera will for the time-being be put on hold as Harrison contemplates his next move.

Without doubt Harrison will be back, and he still has plenty to offer, so it will be well worth watching what he does from here carefully as it will certainly be interesting.

The time at the moment though belongs to Manuel Medina, who again proved against Harrison that in boxing, nothing is certain.