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WBA champion retains title as his old foe folds in the third
David Haye barely broke sweat as he blasted old foe Audley Harrison to defeat.
The WBA heavyweight champion needed just three rounds - two throwing punches - to see off his former friend and fellow Brit with alarming ease in front of a baying MEN Arena crowd.
He didn't need his jab, he didn't need his timing and he didn't need the speed or skills we know he boasts. The fact that Harrison landed one jab in more than eight minutes of boxing proves that challenger did as much champion to bring about his own downfall.
It wasn't even an explosive Haye performance because it didn't need to be. All he had to do was rain in with that right enough times and he knew his old mentor would not be able to escape - or summon up the resolve to fight back.
Harrison was down first early in the third as a right to the body took away his breath and another to the head, possibly round the back, sent him sprawling to his knees. That he beat the count was surprising, what followed next was far from it. It might not have been vintage Haye, but sadly it was the Audley we all remember - even when he has been telling us for the past three weeks that 'he could'.
Well he couldn't. Haye was on him again in a flash, lashing in the right, balancing it with a couple of off-target lefts before smashing one into the stomach. As Harrison's hands came down, a right uppercut doubled up under the chin and the same hand crashed into his temple, toppling him again, this time decisively.
Haye said he would close the door on Audley's career and he did just that. There will be more than a fair share of the capacity crowd at the MEN Arena and among the British boxing public queuing up to throw away the key.
It is hard to have sympathy for Harrison, who certainly talked the talk, but when it came to walking the walk, forgot how to put one foot in front of the other.
It didn't look that way at the start though, as he came out and took the centre of the ring and forced Haye back, but with neither fighter throwing or landing even a speculative jab for the entire first session, Britain's biggest fight since Ricky Hatton's heyday in the same arena, couldn't have got off to a worse start.
Boos and jeers followed the fighters back to their corners. Haye knew he was the one under all the pressure here, so it was no surprise when he came out of his shell first.
A tentative jab followed by the right suggested that he was going to put on the show he'd promised. He'd also told close friends he'd already picked the round in which to finish Harrison off and stepped up the pace in the second - after referee Luis Pabon had actually called them together, not pulled them apart.
His right was permanently cocked and came crashing in a couple more times. The problem was as soon as Harrison saw a flicker of movement he was out of range and as concussive as he can hit, even the WBC champion cannot gain any purchase on his punches when lunging through the air.
He ended the second round on top, where he prefers to be, while Harrison went back to his stool already out of his depth and visibly sinking. He had managed to land some leather on his man - although one could argue the man recording it at ringside felt it more than Haye - ahd the row over gloves before hand, when the contracted ones were deemed faulty and replaced, couldn't have been more irrelevant.
Had you spent more than five minutes in his company in the run-up you would have found yourself starting to believe he actually could, before snapping out of it and realising he had shown nothing to suggest he could keep himself afloat when the pressure was on, never mind drag a fiercer, faster, peak fighter into dark waters. It seemed the very same thing dawned on Harrison as he headed back to his corner.
By the time the third begun Haye had clearly had enough - and he had obviously singled out this round as the one when it would all come crashing down on Harrison, as it did in the shape of that right. There wasn't even any need for the jab, right leads did the trick and had him down on his knees, a forlorn figure, who at least got back to his feet before it was all over again. And that, sadly, is the best thing you can say about his challenge.
The champion on the other hand did what he had to do. He did not need the caution that saw him past Nikolai Valuev and he did not need the clubbing punches that battered John Ruiz; all it needed was for him to hold his nerve when a nation was watching. And that is what David Haye does best.
