In an exclusive interview with Legal Sportsbooks, former professional boxer and Olympic gold medalist Audley Harrison gives his thoughts on the heavyweight boxing scene.
Harrison also offers his boxing expertise to Joshua, Dubois and several others.
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Interview highlights:
- Fury would beat Joshua
- Fury is all hype & games – sending contract to Joshua
- I can get Anthony Joshua’s swagger back
- Joe Joyce needs to ditch his coaching team for me!
- I’ve reached out to Dubois, I can help him beat Usyk
Full Transcript
Question: If Fury vs Joshua eventually gets made, do you see Tyson Fury walking through AJ or do you see it being a closer fight than a lot of people think?
Audley Harrison: “Tyson Fury isn’t a big puncher, so he’s someone that would wear you down. Now he’s with SugarHill Steward. Tyson Fury has always been a good boxer, even from the amateurs he’s been a quality boxer. But what they have done now as a pro, going to SugarHill, he’s taught him about going forward. Now he’s using his weight and he’s able to go forward. He’s not a big puncher but over time, with his mental strength as well, you’d have to make him the favourite against Joshua. But you definitely cannot rule Joshua out. He’s going to come in in great shape and he’s got to go forward and put that pressure on.”
Q: Continuing with Tyson Fury, it was said that AJ laughed when Eddie Hearn read out the contract they had offered to him recently. And it’s been so hard to make any Tyson Fury fights recently. Do you think he’s the problem in terms of trying to make these big fights rather than anyone else? It’s Tyson Fury that’s causing the rifts?
AH: “I think Tyson Fury is the vehicle, he’s the voice, and he’s the one making the noise, but ultimately, as a team behind him, you’ve got Frank Warren behind him, you’ve got Bob Arum behind him, so he has the team behind him. It isn’t just Tyson Fury going out on his own and they’re obviously having the talks. For them to send out a contract, you imagine that they’ve had a conversation, it’s like, ‘hey, let’s send out a contract’, but I don’t know if it’s games or what.
“Typically what will happen is that, ‘want to make this fight?’ You’ve talked the terms, then a heads of agreement will come out with the terms that you’ve spoken. But they haven’t even spoken. It’s pointless just sending an agreement without having discussed it first because you don’t know what the other people are going to agree to or not. The negotiation process, it may be a bit of hype if you just say, ‘oh, I’m just going to send you a contract.’ It’s not typically how it works.”
Q: Do you see that being a knockout win for Wilder? Since Joshua got knocked out by Andy Ruiz, has he lost some of his aura?
AH: “When you keep your ‘0’, it gives you that aura. I know when I was undefeated I had that swagger. Once you lose that ‘0’, you’re going to have to rebuild. That’s where he [Joshua] is right now. He’s in a rebuilding process. The Usyk fights didn’t go his way but I think he’s got one more run in him, he’s just got to get it right.
“Joshua – sit with me, we’ll watch your take together. We’ll just watch your last fight together and then I’ll just pick up on some stuff. Then we could talk it through in a gym, maybe work it through, that’s not offered to you. And I’m guaranteeing you it’d be a good time for your investment. I know it’d be a great time of mine, but great time on your investment.”
Q: Same goes for Joe Joyce? He picked an opponent, ‘Big Bang’ Zhang southpaw, big puncher. He didn’t seem that Joyce was prepared for what he was going to come up against, but he activated the rematch clause. What does he have to do differently to get a different result?
AH: Another guy {Joyce}, who got it all wrong on the night and Zhang took advantage. When he looks at what went wrong, he can’t go back with the same team, no adjustments, because that’s the definition of madness. You can’t get a different result if you do the same thing. So when they look at what went wrong, they should be doing that with an outside audit. You can’t audit yourself. Let me audit you in a good way, not a bad way. It can only help you. It cannot be a negative. Trust me, I know a lot. What I know is too much to go to waste. I’m someone that can teach you, external to your system to the training teams, but they {coaching teams} look at me as a threat. There’s fear, there’s fear.”
Q: Somebody mentioned there, Usyk, somebody mentioned previously, Daniel Dubois. They’re supposed to be getting on, allegedly, in Poland later this year. Is that a fight that interests you? Where do you see that one heading?
AH: “Dubois, Joe Joyce, even Lawrence Okolie losing the other day. All those guys I’ve reached out to. Talking about Dubois and Usyk. Obviously, Usyk has the big advantage. Dubois is a big puncher, but as we’ve seen in his last couple of last fights, even though he got the win, technically there’s some stuff that he can do. I’d love to sit down with Dubois and give him some stuff. If you get an opportunity like that, you can’t turn it down. Usyk is a big favourite and he’s [Dubois] got to try and make the most of it and get as much advice as he can.”
