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Audley Harrison profits from greed that killed a title-unification dream
Britain's 2000 Olympic heavyweight title gold medallist has been the major beneficiary of the Klitschko brothers' intransigence
Britain's 2000 Olympic heavyweight title gold medallist has been the major beneficiary of the Klitschko brothers' intransigence
If logic mattered in professional boxing, David Haye would be fighting Wladimir Klitschko this Saturday night, probably in front of 50,000 people in the SAP Arena in Mannheim, and the sporting world would be transfixed for an hour or so.
More than a million pay-per-view customers in the UK, 40 million free-to-air viewers in Germany and perhaps a couple of million on cable in the United States would see Haye risk his WBA heavyweight title and the Ukrainian his WBO and IBF belts in a unification fight to grab back some credibility for a sport of serial idiocy. Audley Harrison might even tune in – and wonder how he was denied his shot at Haye.
In a scenario that would please the fight game's dream-sellers, the handsome, charismatic Hayemaker, bound for Hollywood, would beat the upright, earnest Klitschko, turn to the Sky microphone at ringside and issue a challenge to Wladimir's older brother, the WBC champion: "I want all the belts, Vitali. Let's get it on!"
Dr Ironfist, as Vitali is sometimes known, would be unable to resist the chance to avenge his brother's defeat, and thus would be put in place an unprecedented, four-belt world heavyweight title fight potentially worth more than any contest in the history of boxing. A Haye victory over Wladimir is the only way it would happen, because the Klitschkos will not fight each other. If the total revenue of these two mega-fights started at £100m, it would not be out of order.
Instead, it will be Harrison looking across the ring at Haye in the MEN Arena on Saturday and silently thanking him for what he is about to receive. This is Haye's party. Audley is his special guest.
Twelve years ago, Harrison was handing out the favours and advice to Haye, a starry-eyed amateur star of 18. Harrison was building his own company, A-Force, something he would call a "blueprint for all boxers". It was, he said, the start of a new era, when fighters would no longer be exploited by greedy promoters.
Then it started to go sour after Harrison returned from the Sydney Olympics in 2000 with a gold medal. At 29, he turned pro and, after extracting £1m from the BBC for 10 live Saturday night bouts, he boxed with all the flair of a bank clerk against mediocre opponents of his own choosing.
British punters tired of his business plan almost as quickly as did the BBC, which tore up the contract, and Harrison left for the United States, where he still lives, only to run into a wall of apathy and too many well-placed fists. His clout was reduced to zero, literally, when he took one American contest for nothing in a desperate bid to break through there.
Harrison returned to the UK intermittently, slowly piecing together the remnants of a career that had promised so much, but his prospects looked bleak. Then Haye, who had fought on five of Harrison's undercards, did not return the favour when his old friend begged him for a last chance. It was the start of a feud that, finally, will deliver them a mutually beneficial payday.
As Haye sees it: "He was coming off a loss, where he got booed. Setanta [Haye's TV backer at the time] said: 'Hell, no, we don't want to promote another network's failure.' I said to him: 'What can I do? Friend or no friend, business is business.' He took that to heart. That's his problem. Since then, all I've heard from him is negative stuff about me."
And how galling it was for Harrison to watch his protege making hay, culminating in his world title victory over Nikolai Valuev in Nuremberg last November.
Megaphone exchanges the past month detailing their spat have built Saturday's fight into a curiously lucrative phenomenon. The all-British clash for the world heavyweight title – the first since Lennox Lewis beat Frank Bruno in Cardiff in 1993 – should return Haye upwards of £5m; Harrison might earn £250,000.
Whatever he is getting, Harrison has reason to be grateful for the negotiating intransigence of the Klitschkos, because he would not have got his shot but for Haye's protracted and doomed dealings with the hard-headed Ukrainians.
"We negotiated with them twice," Haye says. "The first time, for the Wladimir fight [in Gelsenkirchen in June, 2009], it didn't happen because I got injured [and Setanta folded]. From there, we started talking to Vitali [for a fight last September], and I signed for Valuev, because it was a lot better."
The Klitschkos' manager, Bernd Bonte, said he was "surprised that [Haye] expected to get £2.7m out of the English pay-per-view sales for a fight against Vitali or Wladimir". Haye ended up getting closer to £5m for the Valuev fight, a third cut of the pay-per-view revenue. It was excellent business.
Adam Booth, Haye's trainer and manager, says of the second aborted Klitschko deal: "There was a suggestion of how to put the fight together, not an offer. And the suggestion they made was the fight be [split] 50-50. We said, fine – but 50-50 means maximising every territory [the fight would have been in Germany]. So, it's whichever broadcaster pays the most money – and we have a [German] broadcaster who is prepared to pay more than their broadcaster. Ours is ARD [Germany's collective of public-service TV stations]. Theirs is RTL [the country's largest free-to-air broadcaster, with boxing audiences that have hit 40m].
"So it was, yes, it can be 50-50, the whole pot, and the highest revenue determines [who broadcasts the fight]. No, they said, Germany is for RTL. So we said, you're not helping us maximise the revenue. I said, fine: you keep RTL in Germany, we'll keep Sky in the UK, everything else is 50-50. No, they said. OK, put it all in the pot and highest bid in each territory wins. No, they said. Now, that's not an offer."
What happened after the final breakdown in talks was bizarre. Wladimir, after 18 months arguing with Haye, agreed in less than a week to accept a challenge for his titles from Dereck Chisora, little known outside north London until he added the Commonwealth title to his British belt by stopping Sam Sexton of Norwich for the second time on a Frank Warren show in Birmingham two months ago.
Klitschko and Bonte said Chisora, who was yesterday given a 12-week suspended prison sentence for assaulting his former girlfriend in May, accepted the same three-fight deal Haye turned down. He did – but for considerably less money.
Booth says: "The reason Chisora took the Klitschko contract is because he had absolutely no choice. None. I love the way they spin it when they say Dereck has signed to fight both brothers. He's actually signed to fight Wlad. If he wins, he has to fight Wlad again or Vitali. If he wins the second one, he'll have to fight Wlad or Vitali again. That is business as usual for a Klitschko contract.
"What riles them most about David and how we do business is that it doesn't fit their format. They genuinely don't know how to behave in those circumstances. It frustrates them."
The Klitschkos for years have fought opponents who have given them little more than cheap target practice, although the determined Chisora will be no pushover. He might even pull off a major upset – but Haye, for one, doubts it.
Wladimir, justifying his ordinary roster of challengers, says: "My trainer, Emanuel Steward, said: 'Wladimir, you must continue to fight as often as possible, and all the big fights and all the recognition will come with the title.' It is in the history of boxing, as with Joe Louis. What was the line? Bum Of The Month Club?" There is no faulting his candour.
Lewis, who beat Vitali in 2003 and retired as boxing's last undisputed heavyweight champion, says: "You see ridiculous fights like Shannon Briggs [beaten to a pulp by Vitali a few weeks ago] and other Klitschko fights, because the landscape out there is bleak.
"Right now, the Klitschkos are at the top. If you want to be at the top, you have to box the guys at the top. David Haye says he wants half of the money, and I don't blame him. [But] compromise has to be at both ends. The only thing stopping these fights from happening is paper. It's all about the paper."
Haye only recently extracted himself from what would have been a tedious rematch with Valuev, which he had to agree to because Don King, who owned a slice of the Russian, was part of the Valuev promotion. "Why do we have to have a thousand lawyers involved?" Haye says. "Why can't we just get in the ring and fight?"
If Haye beats Harrison, he has a mandatory defence in February or March against Ruslan Chagaev, still to be confirmed. "Then," says Booth, "it's Wladimir, after that Vitali, and it will be all over in the next 11 months, with David retiring as the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world."
But, even if these fights happen and Haye unifies what was once the biggest prize in sport, it will be fractured again as soon as he retires.
Professional boxing is the ultimate expression of sports capitalism, raw in its execution, indifferent to the consequences. And the anarcho-capitalists who run it know confusion is their best friend. It will never be any different.
More than a million pay-per-view customers in the UK, 40 million free-to-air viewers in Germany and perhaps a couple of million on cable in the United States would see Haye risk his WBA heavyweight title and the Ukrainian his WBO and IBF belts in a unification fight to grab back some credibility for a sport of serial idiocy. Audley Harrison might even tune in – and wonder how he was denied his shot at Haye.
In a scenario that would please the fight game's dream-sellers, the handsome, charismatic Hayemaker, bound for Hollywood, would beat the upright, earnest Klitschko, turn to the Sky microphone at ringside and issue a challenge to Wladimir's older brother, the WBC champion: "I want all the belts, Vitali. Let's get it on!"
Dr Ironfist, as Vitali is sometimes known, would be unable to resist the chance to avenge his brother's defeat, and thus would be put in place an unprecedented, four-belt world heavyweight title fight potentially worth more than any contest in the history of boxing. A Haye victory over Wladimir is the only way it would happen, because the Klitschkos will not fight each other. If the total revenue of these two mega-fights started at £100m, it would not be out of order.
Instead, it will be Harrison looking across the ring at Haye in the MEN Arena on Saturday and silently thanking him for what he is about to receive. This is Haye's party. Audley is his special guest.
Twelve years ago, Harrison was handing out the favours and advice to Haye, a starry-eyed amateur star of 18. Harrison was building his own company, A-Force, something he would call a "blueprint for all boxers". It was, he said, the start of a new era, when fighters would no longer be exploited by greedy promoters.
Then it started to go sour after Harrison returned from the Sydney Olympics in 2000 with a gold medal. At 29, he turned pro and, after extracting £1m from the BBC for 10 live Saturday night bouts, he boxed with all the flair of a bank clerk against mediocre opponents of his own choosing.
British punters tired of his business plan almost as quickly as did the BBC, which tore up the contract, and Harrison left for the United States, where he still lives, only to run into a wall of apathy and too many well-placed fists. His clout was reduced to zero, literally, when he took one American contest for nothing in a desperate bid to break through there.
Harrison returned to the UK intermittently, slowly piecing together the remnants of a career that had promised so much, but his prospects looked bleak. Then Haye, who had fought on five of Harrison's undercards, did not return the favour when his old friend begged him for a last chance. It was the start of a feud that, finally, will deliver them a mutually beneficial payday.
As Haye sees it: "He was coming off a loss, where he got booed. Setanta [Haye's TV backer at the time] said: 'Hell, no, we don't want to promote another network's failure.' I said to him: 'What can I do? Friend or no friend, business is business.' He took that to heart. That's his problem. Since then, all I've heard from him is negative stuff about me."
And how galling it was for Harrison to watch his protege making hay, culminating in his world title victory over Nikolai Valuev in Nuremberg last November.
Megaphone exchanges the past month detailing their spat have built Saturday's fight into a curiously lucrative phenomenon. The all-British clash for the world heavyweight title – the first since Lennox Lewis beat Frank Bruno in Cardiff in 1993 – should return Haye upwards of £5m; Harrison might earn £250,000.
Whatever he is getting, Harrison has reason to be grateful for the negotiating intransigence of the Klitschkos, because he would not have got his shot but for Haye's protracted and doomed dealings with the hard-headed Ukrainians.
"We negotiated with them twice," Haye says. "The first time, for the Wladimir fight [in Gelsenkirchen in June, 2009], it didn't happen because I got injured [and Setanta folded]. From there, we started talking to Vitali [for a fight last September], and I signed for Valuev, because it was a lot better."
The Klitschkos' manager, Bernd Bonte, said he was "surprised that [Haye] expected to get £2.7m out of the English pay-per-view sales for a fight against Vitali or Wladimir". Haye ended up getting closer to £5m for the Valuev fight, a third cut of the pay-per-view revenue. It was excellent business.
Adam Booth, Haye's trainer and manager, says of the second aborted Klitschko deal: "There was a suggestion of how to put the fight together, not an offer. And the suggestion they made was the fight be [split] 50-50. We said, fine – but 50-50 means maximising every territory [the fight would have been in Germany]. So, it's whichever broadcaster pays the most money – and we have a [German] broadcaster who is prepared to pay more than their broadcaster. Ours is ARD [Germany's collective of public-service TV stations]. Theirs is RTL [the country's largest free-to-air broadcaster, with boxing audiences that have hit 40m].
"So it was, yes, it can be 50-50, the whole pot, and the highest revenue determines [who broadcasts the fight]. No, they said, Germany is for RTL. So we said, you're not helping us maximise the revenue. I said, fine: you keep RTL in Germany, we'll keep Sky in the UK, everything else is 50-50. No, they said. OK, put it all in the pot and highest bid in each territory wins. No, they said. Now, that's not an offer."
What happened after the final breakdown in talks was bizarre. Wladimir, after 18 months arguing with Haye, agreed in less than a week to accept a challenge for his titles from Dereck Chisora, little known outside north London until he added the Commonwealth title to his British belt by stopping Sam Sexton of Norwich for the second time on a Frank Warren show in Birmingham two months ago.
Klitschko and Bonte said Chisora, who was yesterday given a 12-week suspended prison sentence for assaulting his former girlfriend in May, accepted the same three-fight deal Haye turned down. He did – but for considerably less money.
Booth says: "The reason Chisora took the Klitschko contract is because he had absolutely no choice. None. I love the way they spin it when they say Dereck has signed to fight both brothers. He's actually signed to fight Wlad. If he wins, he has to fight Wlad again or Vitali. If he wins the second one, he'll have to fight Wlad or Vitali again. That is business as usual for a Klitschko contract.
"What riles them most about David and how we do business is that it doesn't fit their format. They genuinely don't know how to behave in those circumstances. It frustrates them."
The Klitschkos for years have fought opponents who have given them little more than cheap target practice, although the determined Chisora will be no pushover. He might even pull off a major upset – but Haye, for one, doubts it.
Wladimir, justifying his ordinary roster of challengers, says: "My trainer, Emanuel Steward, said: 'Wladimir, you must continue to fight as often as possible, and all the big fights and all the recognition will come with the title.' It is in the history of boxing, as with Joe Louis. What was the line? Bum Of The Month Club?" There is no faulting his candour.
Lewis, who beat Vitali in 2003 and retired as boxing's last undisputed heavyweight champion, says: "You see ridiculous fights like Shannon Briggs [beaten to a pulp by Vitali a few weeks ago] and other Klitschko fights, because the landscape out there is bleak.
"Right now, the Klitschkos are at the top. If you want to be at the top, you have to box the guys at the top. David Haye says he wants half of the money, and I don't blame him. [But] compromise has to be at both ends. The only thing stopping these fights from happening is paper. It's all about the paper."
Haye only recently extracted himself from what would have been a tedious rematch with Valuev, which he had to agree to because Don King, who owned a slice of the Russian, was part of the Valuev promotion. "Why do we have to have a thousand lawyers involved?" Haye says. "Why can't we just get in the ring and fight?"
If Haye beats Harrison, he has a mandatory defence in February or March against Ruslan Chagaev, still to be confirmed. "Then," says Booth, "it's Wladimir, after that Vitali, and it will be all over in the next 11 months, with David retiring as the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world."
But, even if these fights happen and Haye unifies what was once the biggest prize in sport, it will be fractured again as soon as he retires.
Professional boxing is the ultimate expression of sports capitalism, raw in its execution, indifferent to the consequences. And the anarcho-capitalists who run it know confusion is their best friend. It will never be any different.
at "Vagina".
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