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Why David Haye simply MUST fight Audley Harrison next
Why David Haye simply MUST fight Audley Harrison next by Fantana
Five reasons why David Haye, WBA Heavyweight Champion, has to defend his belt, pride and man-hood against Audley 'A-Force' Harrison.
1) THE MONEY IS RIGHT
First and foremost, boxing is business. Those proud gladiators such as Floyd Mayweather and Oscar De La Hoya know this, hence Oscar stated "I don't fight for free." The money that would be generated in this colossal fight of two hard hitting British pugilists would be immense. Both fighters could easily get career high pay days, somewhere in the region of 10 million quid plus. If the fight were to take place in summer/late summer, then it could be housed in an outdoor arena such as Wembley stadium. This is where the original Mike Tyson vs Frank Bruno fight was supposed to take place way back in 1988, the reasons it didn't take place where Don King. Luckily, no such promoter would be needed in this fight, since both are largely in control of their own business ventures. This means the fight would be a piece of piss to make, like scrambled eggs. Wembley stadium could hold 80,000 PLUS! For simple maths sake, let's say each ticket was £40. That is £3.2 million in gate receipts. With tickets going to be sold from £1,500, £500, £100, £75 and £40 you could easily double the gate receipts if you simply times £3.2 million twice. This makes an estimated, £6.4 million in gate receipts alone. Next up you have PPV sales. It would easily sell, in the UK alone, 1.5 million buys at £14.95. How did I come to this figure? David Haye sold almost 1 million alone versus Valuev. So 1.5 million x £14.95 is £22,425,000. Over £22 million. So as we can see, that is some big numbers. Then you have foreign TV rights, merchandising, sponsorship etc etc. Overall the fight would easily generate over £50 million, and that is a conservative effort by David Cameron. They say money talks, and I am willing to bet that a lot of fucking money talks at a volume which makes everyone involved in making the fight sit up and take notice.
2) RIVALRY
The rivalry between Audley Harrison and rising star David Haye has heated up dramatically in the last 6 months. Before this, Audley Harrison was out in the cold so to speak, then out of nowhere as the underdog he came back and won the prize fighter tournament, whilst David Haye became WBA champion. In Britian, everybody knows who David Haye is, and everybody and their dog knows who Audley Harrison is. Their rivalry goes back to when they were both friends from the amateurs, when Audley Harrison captured Gold and took the light from David Haye who was unsure if he was going to be a fighter or a model. Then Haye turned pro and really took off, whilst Audley started impressively then lost steam through absolutely no fault of his own.
We all know the story that Audley says when Lennox was watching them spar, Haye took advantage and punched Audley Harrison in the mouth, which is not something you should be doing when sparring because it is cruel and hurts. This enraged Audley Harrison who like a real man, such as myself, went and told the papers. This generated some publicity. Years later, when Audley was still saying Haye was his friend (he took him to the Lennox vs Tua fight don't you know) David Haye would shun Harrison from one his undercards. This further distanced the fighters as friends and they became foe. It is one of the all time great rivalries, like Tyson and that bloke who beat him in the olympics trials who Tyson beat as a pro without mercy for I think 8 rounds, I forgot his name, or Riddick Bowe and Lennox Louis. What everyone talks about is David Haye vs Audley Harrison, fuck Pacquio and Mayweather, they're not from the same country. This is big, this is internal, yet it's ripple effect of excitement has preceded the world cup as sportings most talked about potential match up. In effect, there is bad blood between the two big men, which makes for fascinating viewing.
3) LEGITIMATE COMPETITION
David Haye already has an impressive resume at heavyweight. He is undefeated at this weight, beat (albeit unfairly) all time great John Ruiz, monster man Valuev who is so big and scary looking his own reflection makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, he knocked out Monte Barrett, plus some polish guy.
Audley Harrison has just produced the knockout of the century, with one hand, after getting battered for the entire duration of the fight because he was injured. He is coming off this great win to capture the European Heavyweight championship of the world and of course the prize fighter win, which everyone in Britain watched with awe as he knocked man after man out with his super human mother fucking power. Yet, they are both not without their vulnerabilities. David Haye has the tendency to switch off in a fight, and think he modelling again and just strut around the ring looking all muscular and shit. Audley Harrison has the tendency to get injured, forget how to fight and become lackluster.
Both fighters have been decked, and they both hit with tremendous force. This not only makes the fight exciting, it makes it a legitimate fight. They have both had great wins, are world ranked and to boot they can both be on their day tremendous fighters. This isn't Klitschko versus [Insert bums name here], this isn't Roy Jones vs Bernard Hopkins and this isn't Mayweather vs [Little Man], [Old man], [No one 'cos he's fucking retiring again]. This is David WBA CHAMPION Haye versus Audley OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALIST AND EUROPEAN CHAMPION Harrison. The fight will do numbers better than anything Epic Beard Man could come up with. The heavyweight division is dead, has been since John Ruiz was robbed of his title. He was the only thing keeping it going, the Klitschkos have killed the heavyweight division by constantly fighting and beating everyone and no one at the same time, and they give me nightmares. For the foreseeable future at least, this is the only fight that can be made that is legitimate.
4) PREFIGHT BUILD UP
Everyone loves a good fight build up. Hatton vs Mayweather 24/7 was the best build up perhaps of all time, it was talked about by the masses. Where I used to work guys who didn't even like boxing would talk about it, to me even. People still talk about Ali, even though circa '70 he was shit and wouldn't last 5 minutes in today's heavyweight scene, but he could talk a good fight. If Audley Harrison plays his cards right, he has the making here to come in as the underdog, the galient warrior who has been through Hell yet has never given up on his dream, on the nations dream, of being World Heavyweight Champion. He can be the Cinderella Chris Brown sings about, and if Chris Brown tries to slap him Audley Harrison can literally rip his head off.
David Haye, he is ripe to play the bad guy role, it is a role he is made for. He is younger, freshier, cockier. He supports Millwall. He deletes my messages from his myspace page, and he punched John Ruiz in the back of the head. He is the perfect villain for this fight, the reigning supreme champion who just seems that bit too good, with his fists and mouth, which makes the mountain Audley Harrison has to climb that little bit bigger, that little bit more imagination will be needed in the viewers eyes, and if you start to think about all of this you will get a tingling down your spine, in a non-gay way, as the excitement for an all British 24/7 starts to become a reality. The barrage of verbal insults will fly long before the fists are gloved, long before the cameras roll, and every day when you open up a copy of the newspaper and skip past page 3 to secretly look at the boobies you will see a tyrant of abuse from David Haye against his challenger, who will all the while be doing what he needs to do behind closed doors to win the fight. The stage is set, the money is right, people are talking about it. What else?
CONTINUED IN SECOND POST
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Originally Posted by Master
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