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Jeff Sorby: Former 2000 Olympic gold medalist Audley Harrison (31-6, 22 KO’s) found the fountain of youth tonight in winning the heavyweight Prizefighter tournament by stopping American Derric Rossy (27-6, 14 KO’s) in the 2nd round at the York Hall, Bethnal Green, in London, United Kingdom.
Harrison stopped Rossy in the 2nd round after drilling him with a left hand that put him down in a delayed reaction. Rossy was also dropped in the 1st round by a left hand from Harrison. Before making it to the finals, Rossy had beaten Ian Lewison and Travis Walker by close three round decisions by landing shots and then smothering them so that they couldn’t get their own shots off. But against Harrison, Rossy was out of his element due to Harrison’s accurate left hand punching.
He wasn’t bothered by Rossy’s head movement, crouching style or his attempts to come forward to clinch and throw punches. Harrison was able to catch Rossy over and over again with lefts when he would try to initiate.
In Harrison’s other two fights in the tourney, he stopped Claus Bertino in the 1st with a hard left hand, and he beat Martin Rogan by a lopsided three round decision.
For Harrison, this was the second time he captured the Prizefighter tourney the first being back in 2009. Hopefully for Harrison’s sake, it’ll pay off like it did for him that time. Harrison was able to get a big money title shot against former WBA heavyweight champion David Haye a year later in 2010. Harrison lost badly, but it was still an opportunity given to him based in part from his victory in the Prizefighter tourney.
After tonight’s win, Harrison said he’s ready to go after a world title shot, and he thinks he can still do it. I don’t know about that but Harrison looked the best he ever has since turning pro. Perhaps a big factor in his success was his taking off a lot of weight and getting really thin. Without the extra weight, Harrison was a lot more agile and fast. We saw that with his ability to counter his opponents in each of his three fights.
Prizefighter official results:
Audley Harrison TKO 2 Derric Rossy
Derric Rossy SD 3 Ian Lewison
Audley Harrison UD 3 Martin Rogan
Derric Rossy SD 3 Travis Walker
Ian Lewison TKO 1 Timo Hoffmann
Martin Rogan TKO 3 Albert Sosnowski
Audley Harrison TKO 1 Claus Bertino
