Williams decks and defeats intimidated Harrison
Williams victorious at the Excel Arena
By Ant Evans: Danny Williams scored perhaps the most personally satisfying win of his career when he vandalised the unbeaten record and reputation of Audley Harrison at the Excel Arena in London Saturday night. In a tense 12 round fight characterised by Harrison's extreme reluctance to commit to any sort of physical altercation, Williams decked his bitter rival with a huge right hook in the tenth round to eventually take a 116-112, 116-113 and 113 - 114 split decision.
The fight only came to life in the final three rounds, after Williams slammed in a Hail Mary of a right into Harrison's temple. Frank Warren, Williams's promoter who has harangued Harrison in the press for five years, punched the air with joy as his rival slumped to the canvas only to get up at the count of 'eight'. It appeared that the Sydney Olympic super-heavyweight champion was there for the taking, but the breathless Brixton banger let the moment pass.
The former WBC title challenger very nearly paid a dreadful price for that mistake. Now knowing for sure that he was behind on points after nine rounds of posturing, holding and clubbing, Harrison finally exploded into action and rocked Williams back on his heels with a lead southpaw left. Unlike Williams, Harrison tried his best to seize the moment and battered his rival with a series of shots but Williams, as he proved against Mike Tyson and Vitali Klitschko last year, can take a hell of a shot and refused to wilt.
All this set up a thrilling grandstand finish where Williams, despite the tiredness, forced himself forward and landed several meaty powershots to body and head to make sure of his victory. Harrison landed some big shots of his own but, aged 34 and not used to having an argument this late in the fight, came off second best.
Williams told SecondsOut from his dressing room: "This isn't as big as the Mike Tyson win for me but proves a lot of people wrong. I told everyone I never rated Audley. He's a great boxer, he's got wicked skills, but he's not got the bottle.
"Every round I thought 'this will be the round that he steps it up' but he never did. He refused to fight me. He was proper scared to even commit to his own punches. Every time I even feinted he'd take a step back and he's 6ft 6inches so when he does that that's a lot of distance for me to cover to get him.
"He was just very scared and didn't want to fight me at all. He didn't have the bottle. I finally beat him like I said I would after all that was said. After five years of hearing all his talk, slagging me off, I beat him and proved that I'm the best heavyweight in Britain."
Williams also claimed he twisted his ankle in the fourth round and, with 19stone 6lbs on it, the injury got worse as the fight wore on. "I couldn't put any weight on my front (left) foot. You saw that I almost fell over a couple of times. It didn't help my performance."
Trainer Jim McDonnell added: "Audley was scared half to death and he was the one who made it a poor fight to watch for so long. If Danny hadn't have hurt his ankle he'd have done away with him in nine rounds. This win shows everyone that Danny isn't damaged good after the Klitschko loss (l rsf 8, December 2005, Las Vegas) and is still going to be world champion."
One always hesitates to question the courage of any man who makes his living by fighting but at times Harrison looked intimidated beyond all reason.
The 6ft 6inch southpaw gave away two of the opening three rounds because he barely threw a punch. Williams, too, wasn't throwing as many punches as one would have liked or indeed expected for such a grudge match but his heavier shots probably made the difference with the judges in the quietest rounds.
Harrison's negativity cost him rounds where his seven-inch reach advantage should have been such an asset.
Even when he had Williams badly stunned in the 11th round, A Force couldn't bring himself to commit to his power punches and he had the 15,000 crowd laughing as he missed his hooks by literally a foot.
If Harrison really is a fighter rather than the celebrity athlete wannabe that Williams, Warren and all the rest have always asserted he was, he will go back to American and take on a genuine top 15 opponent immediately.
One has to question whether he has the commitment to do that. Afterwards, he told the BBC that it was a 'tough fight' (it certainly was to watch for nine rounds, thanks to his extreme negativity).
Harrison said: "I have no excuses but I lost my left hand from the third round. I'll go back to the drawing board but I will come back and I will overcome this. Danny Williams beat me on the night and he got the result. I didn't box great but it was a split decision. It's the first defeat of my career but I will be back - Frank Bruno won the world title at the fourth attempt."
Bruno did exactly that, beating Oliver McCall for the WBC belt in September 1995, but Big Frank had the continued support of the British public behind him. Because of his nice-guy character, the British fans were prepared to stick with Bruno until his dream became a reality.
After hearing Harrison booed in and jeered out of the Excel Arena, it is obvious Harrison simply doesn't have that kind of relationship with his countrymen.
Williams won the vacant Commonwealth Title, a belt he first won five years ago, with the win.
December 10, 2005
Scheint ein langweiliger Kampf gewesen zu sein, aber ich werde ihn mir trozdem besorgen.
ja is klar das hat man ja gestern wieder klar und deutlich gesehen. Der Maskaev hat den Sinan nach allen regeln der Boxkunst verprügelt. Vorlallem in den letzten Runden als Sinan den Ko suchte bekam er ja nur noch prügel.
