Audley Harrison decides to keep boxing for 'one more shot at glory'

Despite crushing defeats in his last two major fights, and a fairly ragged performance between them, Audley Harrison has decided to keep fighting at age 40, saying he's looking for "one more shot at glory."

From Harrison's Twitter:

Despite the haters ...I've had a good journey, truly am grateful for my blessing & give all praise to jah, god, universe. Rolling the dice! A decision has come from above. He told me son 'lace up your gloves' your time as a boxer is not quite done, so go out there & have some fun. Its official... I've decided to carry on. One more shot at glory. It could be over; next fight will tell me. See u in a ring real soon. Nite

Harrison (28-6, 21 KO) was blown out of the ring by David Price in 82 seconds on October 13, crumbling as soon as Price landed a decent punch, much as he did in 2010 against David Haye, when he lasted three rounds, mostly because Haye didn't do anything for the first two.

In both fights, Harrison looked ... I don't want to say scared, because that's a heavy word for a fighter, but he appeared to be filled with anxiety, even just walking to the ring. He never seemed truly confident.

I'm not trying to be a "hater" here, either, but never again can Audley Harrison be claimed by any promoter as a tough fight for anyone of note. They oversold him as a world title challenger against Haye, which wound up with fans disgusted by what they'd spent their money to see.

Now, fans being silly enough to buy into the Haye-Harrison hype was their own problem, but the promoters absolutely knew what they were doing, and Sky Sports' big stance after the fight, where they eliminated their pay-per-view boxing efforts, reeked of phony blame-shifting. Who in the Sky boxing department thought it was going to be anything different going in? If they really thought it was competitive on paper, that was their fault, not Audley Harrison's.

The Price fight was a farce when it was signed, "as good as it could get" domestically, but still entirely predictable. Nobody thought Audley would win. Nobody thought he would be competitive.

This, again, is not meant as "hating." The proof is in the pudding: Audley Harrison can't fight at a high level anymore. Many would say that he never really could.

I have some genuine respect for Audley Harrison. First off, he won an Olympic gold medal. Also, he seems like a genuinely nice person. But the time to get out of the ring has come and gone, I think. That's just my personal opinion as an observer. If he wants to fight on, and he's fit to do so, that's his call, but promoters just cannot book him in anything close to a major fight at this point, as it's very blatantly lying to the public if they sell him as any sort of threat to a credible fighter. Those days are long gone.