by James Slater: Even though both David Haye himself and his trainer and manager Adam Booth have spoken negatively about the match-up, its seems there is still a good chance the WBA heavyweight ruler will engage in an all-British showdown with fellow Londoner and former Olympian Audley Harrison later this year.
According to promoter Barry Hearn, who has been quoted by Boxrec.com and ESPN.co.uk, says his son Eddie is working on getting the fight made, not him personally, but that his son informs him how talks are “going reasonably well.” Hearn senior, the man behind Matchroom Promotions – the team that co-promoted those great middleweight bouts between Chris Eubank and Nigel Benn back in the 1990s – says he feels a Haye-Harrison fight would be “enormous” and a fight all of Britain would want to see.
“In the heavyweight division, there is nothing else out there as far as British fight fans are concerned,” Hearn told Sky Sports. “Haye-Harrison is enormous. The fantastic thing about David Haye is that he’s burst onto the scene and done a fantastic job against [Nikolai] Valuev and boxed the ears off John Ruiz and put him into retirement. He’s hot.”
However, as “hot” as Hearn believes Haye to be, the promoter, amazingly, feels the southpaw known as “A-Force” is the bigger draw of the two heavyweights.
“Audley, in my opinion, is a bigger draw,” Hearn said. “People don’t know what to expect from Audley Harrison, he’s been talking a great fight for years, never delivered it. He’s as that last stage saloon. Every fight fan in England wants to see this fight. The fight’s going to be amazing. I hope Eddie and Adam Booth get this fight together. Stay tuned.”
And while it’s surely a bit of an exaggeration to say “every fight fan in England wants to see Haye-Harrison,” Hearn is right in saying the fight will be a big box office success over here. The fact is, people love to hate Audley, and they would tune in so as to see him get sparked by “The Hayemaker.” Okay, in the opinion of most the fight wouldn’t last too long (Haye himself has said he’d “mince” Harrison), but a nice clean knockout would likely occur.
If you asked a survey of British fans if they’d prefer to see Haye get it on with one of the Klitschko brothers instead of the 2000 Olympic gold medallist, they’d all answer overwhelmingly that they would. But, as we know, that isn’t going to happen this year. Haye against someone like Tomasz Adamek or Alexander Povetkin would also be a much better scenario, but it looks like we will have to make do with Haye Vs. Harrison. But will any U.S fans bother to tune in?