Audley Harrison believes minor adjustments from Fabio Wardley could see him upset the odds and gain revenge over Daniel Dubois inside the O2 Arena in London.<\/p>\n
Harrison, who won gold at the 2000 Olympics, retired in 2015 after a career he himself would admit didn\u2019t quite match his early promise. Though he would win the European heavyweight title with a spectacular last-ditch victory over Michael Sprott in 2010, world belts eluded him.<\/p>\n
Regardless, Harrison can boast an immaculate rematch record. He contested three in his career, winning them all to avenge losses to Danny Williams, Sprott and Martin Rogan.<\/p>\n
Harrison believes Wardley \u2013 himself currently 1-0 in sequels \u2013 can follow his lead. <\/p>\n
\u201cI definitely give him a chance,\u201d Harrison told The Opening Bell. \u201cThese two guys’ styles are very complementary to each other, where none of these guys really believe in a jab as much. First fight, Daniel Dubois did use his jab, he had sort of a single and double jab, and that won the fight because Wardley could not land that right hand on him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Though Wardley did have success in the opening three rounds with his looping right hand, dropping Dubois twice, he became overly reliant on the punch for the remainder of the bout.<\/p>\n
Dubois, busier with his own lead hand, was wise to the crude advances and slowly thumped the resistance out of his foe.<\/p>\n
By the 11th round Wardley, who had long since abandoned his own jab, was still swinging wildly with his right. Furthermore, he was left bloodied, bruised, and beaten.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there’s gonna be an adjustment from Wardley this time,\u201d Harrison continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the way Wardley’s training, he does all that exercise physiology stuff that I used to do. He does a lot of that stuff. A lot of plyometrics, a lot of dynamic training that really does set you apart as long as you’ve got the boxing side right [as well]. You can’t just do that [physiology] side. Last time he didn’t get the boxing side right, and that’s why he got punished.<\/p>\n
\u201cDubois got the boxing side right. He still got knocked down, didn’t he? A few times.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, this time, Daniel’s got to be careful.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hear him saying, it\u2019s gonna be an easy fight. \u2018I’m knocking him out, blah, blah, blah.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201c[But Wardley\u2019s] gonna be an absolute monster in terms of his fitness and conditioning. If you’re gonna nail him down, you’re gonna have to nail him down. You know, it’s gonna be like a death fight. You’re taking it to the death because that’s the kind of condition he’s gonna bring in. And that’s the kind of mindset he’s got. He’s going in for the revenge, which is the mindset that you need to have.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harrison accepts that Dubois was superior last time. But he was far from perfect, says the 54-year-old.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope Dubois has continued to level up their technical skills because the feint was nice, and the double jab was nice. But that’s not enough. That’s just level one\u2026 You gotta go level two, level three.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou’ve got to start going head and body with those uppercuts. When he’s walking in with that right hand and he’s missing, you’ve got to go to the side and go body-head. There’s so much more that Dubois needs to do to be effective.<\/p>\n
\u201cWardley, he’s just got to add the jab. A lot of stuff he does naturally, like he throws a good right hand, he throws a lot of nice stuff.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut the jab’s got to become his weapon. If the jab becomes his weapon in this fight, it’s a game changer for him.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe could be really successful if he can pop Dubois on a jab. Because remember, Dubois don’t like the jab \u2013 pop, pop \u2013 in his face. He don’t like that. He wants to get in there and have that fight. So, if Wardley has that discipline with the jab and can beat him up a bit and get him frustrated, it allows it to be his fight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harrison does have one concern about Wardley, however.<\/p>\n
Only five months have passed since their first encounter and, though Wardley is clearly durable, the punishment he absorbed may have left a lasting mark.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought you need nine months [before fighting again after a fight like that],\u201d Harrison explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut then in reality, like the broken nose and everything, in a month that’s probably settled\u2026 So, after a month, you’re probably good to go to start thinking about setting a date, which is basically what they’ve done.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut he’s had a war\u2026 it takes something from you. And you can never get that back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even so, Harrison is struggling to pick a winner.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs Dubois gonna get knocked down and not be able to get back up? Is Wardley gonna not be able to withstand the punishment that he took in the first fight? He’s not gonna be able to.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, he’s gotta change his game plan just for that, so that he doesn’t have to weather so much punishment because you can’t keep coming back.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Audley Harrison believes minor adjustments from Fabio Wardley could see him upset the odds and gain revenge over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":805975,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[91125,2560,6102,10078,4035,77989,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-805974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-audley-harrison","tag-boxing","tag-boxing-news","tag-boxingscene","tag-daniel-dubois","tag-fabio-wardley","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=805974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805974\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/805975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=805974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=805974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=805974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}