Matty Harris defeat: time to tell it as it is

Matty Harris… heavyweight hope shockingly stopped on Friday night

TO his credit, Edwin Cleary, trainer of big punching heavyweight Matty Harris, rang me following the fighter’s shock defeat on Friday night.

Leamington’s Cleary – a boxing man through and through – could’ve stayed silent. He didn’t. He could’ve shunned the press. He didn’t. He could’ve played the blame game. He didn’t.

He rang to stress Coventry’s Harris still has a future. He stood by his boxer.

That is the measure of the man.

Harris, with five wins under his belt, four by first round stoppage, dramatically came unstuck against Kostiantyn Dovbyshchenko on Wasserman Boxing’s Meadowbank Sports Centre bill in Edinburgh.

The 6ft 8ins hope, signed to Wasserman and being groomed for stardom, dropped the Ukrainian in the second, then appeared to dramatically run out of gas. With Dovbyshchenko hurling round-house blows and nothing coming back, the bout was stopped in the fifth.

The fall-out has been bruising for both Harris and Cleary. In a no-holds-barred interview with iFL TV, Kalle Sauerland, head of Wasserman, slated the heavyweight hope’s conditioning.

I will be mightily disappointed in Harris if he changes trainers after the loss: a boxer who ditches his coach after defeat is a boxer in denial, a boxer unwilling to accept his own mistakes.

Cleary is a very good trainer with an exemplary track record.

The reality – seemingly lost on the national media who went into a feeding frenzy after Harris’ string of early victories – is Edwin is working with a raw novice who carries phenomenal power. Matty had a scant amateur career.

Matty Harris packs one hell of a wallop, but if power was the be all and end all of boxing, weightlifters would be champions.

Cleary is turning him into a professional hopefully capable of competing for belts. If Harris has any sense, he’ll let the man continue what he started.

As far as the boxer’s development is concerned, I personally feel signing with Wasserman plunged the 23-year-old into a place he was not prepared for. It gave him slots on televised shows, it gave him national headlines.

The deal was financially rewarding, but denied Harris the chance to learn his craft away from the spotlight, it also fast-tracked his development.

Ask any trainer: it takes years to turn a beginner into a champion.

On Saturday morning, Cleary said: “Matty is 23, in heavyweight terms he’s a baby – heavyweights don’t mature until 26-27. The problem we have – and I’ve always said it – is it needs time for his experience to catch up with his talent, and, at present, his experience is so far away from his talent.

“Matt hits as hard as Deontay Wilder, I mean that. The way he hits, it’s not normal. What he hasn’t got is experience.

“He can continue knocking people out or he can gain that experience artificially, in gyms sparring top names, which is difficult and takes time.

“He has done the basics, he’s done all the basics. He has incredible physical attributes, he’s worked on his skills, he’s worked on his technique. He’s just got to get out of his comfort zone in training. If he didn’t train, he’d be 24 stone by the end of the year, he’s a monster.”

 Of the disastrous night, Cleary said: “Matty dropped him in the second and, in hindsight, that was probably the worst thing that could’ve happened. He just didn’t box off the back foot.”

Sauerland – the man signing the cheques - was clearly in no mood for diplomacy.

He told iFLTV: “The conditioning was a complete disaster, you have to look at the whole set-up there.

“It can go two ways. He can take this as a massive boost in his career – that could happen, or it could go totally t*ts up because that, in there, was not even British level, that was nothing.

“It was a shocking night, a shocking night and the conditioning looked disastrous. It could really be a boost or it could go to total s**t. Sort your set-up out, whatever you are doing there’s something wrong.”

Of the performance, Sauerland added: “Atrocious, proper rubbish. He has such incredible hand speed for a big guy, unbelievable talent, but sometimes talent ruins people in this sport.”

If Matty Harris cut corners in preparation, then he is solely to blame.

Sadly and unfairly, in today’s game the trainer bears the brunt – and Edwin Cleary deserves better, just ask the many champions he’s produced.

Birmingham’s Malcolm Melvin, a trainer respected throughout the game, is known for his hard-line approach. A boxer either does what the former British title challenger says, when he says it, how he says it and puts 100 per cent into it, or they are shown the door. “Giving them their P45,” he calls it.

Following the Matty Harris fall-out, I understand the wisdom of that approach.

In each contest a fighter’s reputation is on the line, but so, too, is a trainer’s.