Boxing: Bold Williams faces make-or-break bout
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Your support makes all the difference.Danny Williams and Audley Harrison are two very different heavyweights but tonight they each face difficult tasks.
Williams is up against it in the ring when he fights the Germany-based Turkish boxer Sinan Samil Sam in Berlin for the European Heavyweight title, while Harrison has his problems outside the ring because the penultimate fight of his BBC contract must look good.
Williams is the British and Commonwealth champion and if he had opted to fight a flabby Russian on a obscure undercard he would have finally received a world title fight at the end of the year. However, he is risking 10 years of hard work and his world ranking by travelling to Berlin and meeting Sam, who is unbeaten in 16 fights and is nicknamed the "Bull of the Bosphorous".
Meanwhile, it will also be a rare treat for the several million viewers watching on the BBC as Harrison has the test of his boxing career against the 33-year-old American Rob Calloway, whose record admittedly exceeds his genuine abilities. However it is the negotiating away from the ringside that is crucial to his survival.
Harrison and his advisors know that he needs to impress to secure the best possible deal. Harrison has often been difficult to deal with but he remains the most watched and the best-known active fighter in Britain.
Nearly all of the tickets for Harrison's fight at the Fountain Leisure Centre in Brentford have been sold and there are small signs that the arrogance that has accompanied his descent from Olympic idol to anonymous brawler is slowly vanishing and the fans are once again talking about him.
Williams, without doubt, has one of the most daunting tasks faced by a British heavyweight in many, many years. But if he can win in Berlin it will put him at the very top of the world's heavyweight pile and with a bit of behind the scenes lobbying he will play a key role in filling the void when Lennox Lewis retires later this year.
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