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Stop the madness!

There have been heavy rumblings this week from Audley Harrison stating that a contract is almost finalized for a fight with David Haye to take place sometime in the near future.

Haye almost bit Harrison’s head off, replying that the biggest purse of Audley’s career wouldn’t be enough to cover his medical bills.                                                                      haye

Yet, somewhere in that mini statement from Haye, was there no denial from him that a fight was going to come to fruition.

In my opinion, this year hasn’t exactly been memorable for boxing.

We have had a few good clashes, in particular, Froch vs Kessler, Martinez vs Pavlik and even Abraham vs Direll was a decent scrap until ‘King Arthur’ decided to spoil the ending and hit Dirrell while he was down, thus disqualifying himself.

But we have also had just as many turkeys such as when Cintron decided to test whether he had flying powers and hurl himself out of the ring when he fought Paul Williams, Pacquiao vs Clottey was pretty much a “Non Event” despite the official name of the bout being called quite the reverse and Jones vs Hopkins was just not needed at all!

It’s easier to think about all the poor fights that have taken place this year than the good ones. Perhaps that is just my way of thinking but surely there can be no denying that the quality of fights have slipped considerably as the years have gone by.

And, oh the joy, there is now the possibility that we have to sit through, what will that I really hope not, be hyped up as a great British fight in Harrison vs Haye. After all the talking ‘The Haymaker’ has done, it will be quite embarrassing on his part to go through with this.

It’s been about “the money” for many years in the sport now and this can be the only reason why Haye would ever contemplate going through with such a fight. Harrison, to put it bluntly, quite simply does not deserve a shot at any version of the world title.

He barely came through his last fight in beating Michael Sprott back in April when he found a left hook to end the fight in the final round, however courageous from Harrison that was.

There was a legitimate excuse from Audley in that he suffered a severe shoulder injury which hampered him from using his right hand effectively but…..let’s get real here for a minute.

He is ranked 9 by the WBA, the version of the World Championship that Haye holds, and it was only two fights ago that he took part in ‘Prizefighter’, a tournament that is, while fun to watch, world calibre boxers have no business fighting in. And judging by Audley struggling with Sprott, twice now, any speculation of him being world level material must be in the minority.

Michael Sprott, himself, has not reached beyond British level, in the grand scheme of things, even though he was once European champion.

So what is going on here with this much rumoured circus match?

Because that is what it would be!

I think it would appeal to the casual fan who probably refer to Harrison as “that olympic gold champion” and Haye who “beat that giant fella” but to the hardcore boxing fan, we know the boxers and promoters are fleecing the public with another conning fight.

Boxrec.com, even though the site much works around more on rumours than concrete evidence, have the fight slated for November but this date would, in all probability, be logical and suitable for both boxers.

With promoter, Bob Arum, making efforts to set up a fight between Manny Pacquiao and Antonio Margarito, who has been found guilty of wearing illegal handwraps for his 2008 bout with Shane Mosley and has last week been refused license in California, the end of 2010 does not exactly look great!

Yes, we all wanted to see the much talked about Mayweather vs Pacquiao but there are other quality matches that could have been put together to end 2010 on a high note for the sport.

At least Devon Alexander and Timothy Bradley have it right.

They have talked the talk and are now seemingly walking the walk with their proposed unification fight probably taking place in January of next year. David Haye, for all his intentions, has been found short of walking the walk.

If he wants to make a lot of money before finally facing one of the Klitschko brothers then so be it but all I ask, please, is that the boxers, promoters and whoever else is involved to not hype this fight and say it is a  fantastic match-up as they will try to make it out to be and patronize us!

If the masses do end up supporting this then I will feel that I have no legitimate right to complain anymore about the subpar matches we are continued to be fed. Every single person that is either a matchmaker, promoter or even the boxers themselves need to wake up and realise that they are turning boxing into a farce!

To say there are only two boxers that I can think of that want to legitimately fight the best and treat the money as a secondary issue is rather embarrassing.

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