By Terence Dooley
I say farce specifically because Scotland is a country that was the setting for a great, possibly the greatest, tragedy, but the Scott Harrison story does not match-up to the tragic ethos. In fact the cancellation of Scott Harrison’s fight versus Gary St Clair has made Scotland the procurer, or as the fight was meant to be in Belfast the exporter, of more comedic fare. Harrison has pulled out of his defence and the reasons cited are mental in nature, the fact he was arrested on Saturday in a night club whilst he should have been preparing for the fight is probably a big factor in him giving the bout the heave-ho.
When it was announced that Scott Harrison would be fighting Gary St Clair many were just glad that there was a fight taking involving Scott, the WBO Featherweight titlist, taking place.
After his last fight, a points win over Nodal Hussein, it had been stated that Scott would next take on the exciting puncher Joan Guzman and when the fight was signed many fans felt it would be more exciting than Lacy-Calzaghe and Hatton-Tszyu. Unfortunately the fight fell apart when Harrison had a problem with his teeth and it had to be rescheduled. Evidently Guzman was no longer completely sure, for reasons we can now understand, that the fight was cast-iron and did a flip over to Golden Boy promotions thereby scuppering the fight.
Guzman is known by some as “Mini Tyson”, he should now probably be called Nostraguzman as he got it spot on in ducking out of this scheduled fight to, the impudent scamp, take a fight that was actually going to happen, or did in fact happen near enough a fortnight ago. Instead of being in the final stages, in the final weeks no less, of preparation for a Harrison fight that was not to be Guzman instead performed versus Javier Jauregui on the under card of Ricardo Mayorga-Oscar De La Hoya.
In retrospect the accusations of cowardice that flew in the direction of Guzman look a little bit misplaced as well as classes, especially given the fact that the Guzman camp has today voiced concern over the well-being of Harrison. If Guzman is labelled a coward for ducking out of a fight with the, lets face, changeable Harrison then what does that make Harrison for scuppering yet another fight?
Scott is no coward; the best label for him will probably be conjured up by the fans who have paid to watch him fight and are still clutching that golden ticket waiting for the main event, a main event that is probably now Danny Williams blowing away a particularly dangerous blancmange.
So what is going on? Well Scott Harrison was arrested after a nightclub incident in Balloch on Saturday and was later confirmed to be helping police with their enquiries. Scott had also been arrested in April after an alleged incident in a Glasgow public house. It is also amazing to consider that he was once banned from every pub and club in the East Kilbride town centre area after a string of offences. Clearly Scott has no place in the boxing ring at present.
It is sad that Scott may be suffering but on the other hand what are “mental issues” and how do we factor them into boxing? What “mental issues” are so great they are destroying the career of a successful, and let’s face it well paid boxer who should have discipline in spades?
For all the sympathy due Harrison, and some might say he deserves slim and none, the fact is that if you stopped any of the fans who would have filtered through the gates in Belfast on Saturday and asked them if they had mental issues they’d probably give you a few “yes” answers, in fact they would probably have told you their mental issues stemmed from shelling out money to see a fighter, and world-champion, who is no longer fighting.
It is bemusing to say the least that a fighter with the best British promotional/managerial team talent can buy behind him should be now a seriously damaged commodity with question marks over his future. Frank Warren, his promoter, and Frank Maloney, his manager, must now pick up the pieces of their errant fighters career and pray the WBO do not strip him for inactivity and issues relating to his arrest on Saturday.
Scott Harrison may like to socialise, many fighters do, but when he is fighting in the pubs more than in the ring it is problematic. Boxing is a sport and Harrison is a sportsman, if the best chance you have of seeing him fight is by nipping to his boozer at chucking out time then something is terribly wrong. We understand that boxer’s pull out of fights but this “fight” has become a long-running farce and either Harrison was ready to fight sometime soon or he was not; if he was not his team needed to pull him out of the line of fire and get his problems dealt with, preferably without letting down the fans on the eve of a fight. He needed support from his, no doubt expensive, support team.
Another thing that is clear is that the people who come out of this worst-off are the fans, Scott Harrison has plenty of past glory and money to ease his mental problems, it is the fans that will carry the brunt of this debacle, be it in poor fights on the night or missing out on a title fight. That is the real shame in all this. When he is recovered Scott owes the boxing fans big time, Joan Guzman-Scott Harrison anyone?
This all probably seems a bit harsh on Scott, he may have legitimate problems but he is paid a lot of money to do something he loves. Plus it is hard to feel sympathy when one considers the abuse and question marks raised over Guzman’s withdrawal from the original date. Consider:
“It is disappointing. Guzman has let boxing fans down but it's not unexpected. If you look at Guzman's record he has a history of pulling out of fights and running away. You only have to look at how inactive he has been compared to Scott Harrison. They had more problems than Scott. Scott will be fitter than ever before, having been training for five weeks. But it's not really a setback. If anything it's a bigger setback for Guzman. People will now be wary of talking with him. It shows that if he is not 110% sure of winning a fight then he has no intention of taking a fight. They realised Scott Harrison had no intention of pulling out, they had a fight on their hands so they ran away."
That was Frank Malone speaking after Guzman pulled out of the last scheduled fight. Now also consider:
“After talks with Guzman's camp, they made it clear that Joan has no intention of facing Harrison. To say I am disappointed, especially when we had a signed contract for the fight, is an understatement. It's a real liberty on the part of Guzman and I think he swallowed it, plain and simple. All the talk from him has been about what he was going to do to Harrison but I think it was beginning to dawn on him that Scott really wanted the fight - and to give him a hiding."
That was Frank Warren flaming Guzman after the withdrawal from the scheduled fight weeks before it was due to happen.
Ironic no? Now the script has been flipped and now the mud is being thrown in Harrison’s direction. Consider:
“I have no idea if Scott will ever fight again because he has a few problems that are in the hands of the courts relating to drink and drugs. But if he doesn't own up to his problems and seek professional help for them, he's an idiot.”
So pretty stern words from Warren and in reply Frank Maloney has asked for patience. Personally I wish no ill on Scott and hope he recovers but I’m not sure patience will be shown by the fans who paid for tickets and made travel arrangements to see a man fight who, by all accounts, was not ready for a fight, in the boxing ring at least.
If Harrison has demons we must absolve him of the blame for the fight falling through, those close to him should have taken this issue by the horns long ago rather than leading us all a merry jig. When a man is in a bad place quite often it is those around him who must step up and help him, it seems that Scott, allowed to break camp to go to a nightclub, needs someone to protect him from himself, his handlers are not up to the task, not on the evidence of the past few days.