From the safe distance of a tweet, the former England cricket captain Michael Vaughan asked on the recent departure from boxing of the one-time Olympic super-heavyweight champion Audley Harrison: "Is he the first boxer to retire without throwing a punch?"

It was a cheap shot, unworthy of a fellow sportsman, one who has never known the pain and inherent dangers of the professional boxing ring.

Strolling to the crease clad in a protective helmet and other well-padded body armour to face a couple of bouncers is one thing; absorbing punches to the head and having your ribs cracked by well-aimed body blows another.

Vaughan's nasty public school snigger demeaned himself, not Harrison, the reformed tearaway with whom all he has in common is a mutual appearance on Strictly Come Dancing.


Ok, we've all done our share of Audley bashing, me included. No British boxer has been more mocked or vilified. The self-styled A-Force has been relabelled The A-Farce and promoter Frank Warren even re-christened him Fraudley.

But he's taken the barbs on the chin as well as the punches and while his farewell obviously is not in the same league as Sir Alex Ferguson he is another British sporting institution who should be given at least a modicum of respect as he bows out.

In truth, few boxers have ever promised so much as a professional and delivered so little. He was never a warrior like Ricky Hatton or Amir Khan and he carries the responsibility of the BBC turning their backs on boxing after their ill-judged £1 million ($1.5 million/€1.2 million) investment in him turned sour.


His 12-year professional career was at best a chequered one. He won a European title and fought albeit briefly and ingloriously against David Haye for the world title.

They say he lacked bottle, but he was stupidly brave enough at 41 to take on the unbeaten KO King (all 27 inside four rounds) Deontay Wilder, arguably the most fearsome heavyweight America has produced since Mike Tyson in his last fight, being battered in just over a minute.

Physically, Harrison had all the attributes to be a great professional boxer but psychologically he was unsuited to it, always talking a better fight than he could deliver.

The trouble with Audley was that he knowingly oversold himself. While he loved the fight game, he just didn't like fighting.

At least, not as a pro.

He talked passionately of his dream and his "journey" towards the world title. But ironically, in the end he became the ultimate journeyman.


Yet balance this with his achievements as an amateur. He was twice national champion, won Commonwealth gold and his success at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 was Britain's first boxing gold since Chris Finnegan in Mexico in 1968.

Harrison had worked out the amateur game to perfection, how and when to score the points which caught the eyes of the judges. Some say he should never have turned pro, though of course he can give you a couple of million reasons why he did – the banknotes now nestling in his American savings account.

Moreover, there has been no scandal during his career. No drugs, no boozing, no womanising. He remains deeply religious and committed to family life in Los Angeles where he awaits fatherhood for the second time with his wife Raychel.

Fighting his way up from a corrective institution he acquired a university degree (BSc) and an MBE and leaves us with this poignant epitaph: "There are only so many times you can fall before it becomes foolhardy to continue."

We'll miss making fun of his prose and his predictions and actually, we'll miss dear old Audley himself bit, too.

From the sometimes ridiculous to the consistently sublime. Last weekend I had the pleasure of watching, via satellite television, a couple of master classes in what occasionally is still the noble art.


Then there was Wladimir Klitschko, Vitali's little brother (well he's only 6ft 6in) brilliantly despatching the hapless though hitherto undefeated Italian Francesco Pianeta in six rounds in Mannheim.

As with Mayweather, it was a boxing exhibition for the fistic aficionado rather than the bloodthirsty punter, an enthralling if clinical exercise in dismantling an opponent with classical efficiency.

Jab, jab, jab, right cross to the head, jab again. You rarely see Klitschko throw a body punch because he doesn't need to. He is methodical, almost robotic, but mesmerisingly so.

I have always been a great fan of the brothers Klitschko, though I doubt 41-year-old Vitali will fight again as he is now so immersed in Ukrainian politics).

They are highly intelligent (both holding PhDs), charming multi-linguists who have brought great credit to the sport.

Contrast the respective careers of Harrison and Klitschko. Wladimir had become the Olympic super-heavyweight champion in Atlanta (where Mayweather claimed the featherweight bronze) four years before the Londoner won in Sydney.

Like Harrison, Klitschko has had his ups and down but has proved his resilience to become an outstanding world champion, acquiring three versions of the title with his brother holding the other.


Then Olympics have been a profitable shop window for most modern heavyweight, and latterly super-heavyweight, gold medallists.

Muhammad Ali, arguably the supreme post-war world heavyweight champion (if not of all time) was only a precocious teenage light-heavyweight named Cassius Clay when he won his Olympic gold in Rome 1960.

But Smokin' Joe Frazier (Tokyo 1964), George Foreman (Mexico City 1968) and Lennox Lewis (Seoul 1988) all went on to resoundingly claim the richest prize in sport. Russia's Alexander Povetkin (Athens 2004) holds the WBA version and is next in line for a crack at Wladimir.

Those who did not include the American Tyrell Biggs (Los Angeles 1984) who became a serious contender but had the misfortune to come up against "Iron Mike" Tyson at his most spiteful.

The Italian policeman Roberto Cammarelle (Beijing 2008) has never turned pro while the young Briton who narrowly beat him at last year's London final, Anthony Joshua, has yet to make up his mind whether to do so.


But perhaps the biggest losers in the Olympic stakes were the Cuban heavies. Teófilo Stevenson and Félix Savón were both three times champions but several decades too soon to take advantage of their nation's recently enlightened view on professionalism.

The late Stevenson was a devastating puncher, as big and handsome as Ali and potentially one of the best heavyweight boxers I have ever seen. He was in Muhammad's era and what a fantastic fight it would have been between Castro's right-hand man and The Greatest.

Such an encounter is the stuff of dreams but alas, like Audley Harrison's mission impossible, a dream that will never be realised.

Alan Hubbard is an award-winning sports columnist for The Independent on Sunday, and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered a total of 16 Summer and Winter Games, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire.