Its official, David Haye will defend his WBA Heavyweight Title against former European Champion and 2000 Olympics Super-Heavyweight Gold Medallist Audley Harrison. In a press conference broadcast live on Sky Sports News it was confirmed that the two would meet at the Manchester Evening News Arena on November 13th and that the fight will be televised on Sky Box Office. It is expected that  it will be shown as part of a double-header with Pacquiao-Margarito.

Despite having frequently dismissed the possibility of fighting Harrison earlier this year, Haye hyped the forthcoming ‘Battle of Britain’  by saying that he doesn’t believe that Harrison deserves a title shot but he will take the fight to blast the unpopular heavyweight out of the sport. Harrison responded by claiming that he “laid out the red carpet” for Haye when the two-weight world champion was starting out and that this was his moment of destiny. 

In an entertaining press conference, the two bantered back and forth on a range of topics including their past history, Harrison living in LA, Haye’s chin and Harrison’s left hand. For all the criticism I’ve given him over the past few months, I thought Haye handled the situation very well with his decision to play down the world title credentials of the fight in favor of billing it a ‘public execution’ for Harrison extremely shrewd. Of course in that case one has to wonder why he couldn’t have taken the unification match with Wladimir Klitschko and then come back to face Harrison, even if he had lost the title. Still for all its shortcomings as a sporting contest Haye-Harrison should make for two months of high quality trash talking and with Sky Sports fully on board it should easily end up one of (if not the) most purchased boxing pay per views of 2010.

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Tags: Audley Harrison, David Haye, Manny Pacquiao vs Antonio Margarito, Sky Sports, WBA Heavyweight Title