Softly, softly Harris out to talk in ring

Which is reassuring: as it's almost impossible to hear what he is saying outside of it.

Softly spoken? He makes whispering Chris Eubank sound like the Bolsterstone Male Voice Choir at full throttle.

Harris's barely-audible tones confounded my humble tape recorder.

And the SKY TV sound engineers were scratching their heads how to pump up the volume to adequate levels.

So, with Junior Witter no great lover of press conferences, either, yesterday's world title media event at Hellaby Hall had all the explosive content of a 10-stone Audley Harrison.

Guyana-born Harris has flown from the US in to take Witter's WBC light welterweight belt off him (Doncaster Dome; tomorrow.)

Witter's trainer Dominic Ingle, sat two feet away from Harris, couldn't hear how the challenger was going to achieve it.

But it seems fair to assume that the New York-based puncher is confident, the tail end of one sentence ending with the words: "..get the job done."

Witter, fingering his WBC belt nervously - more because of the cameras than any effect Harris was having - was slightly more committal, though. The 33-year-old promised that at the end of the bout the MC would announce: "And still the WBC champion..."

After the stilted press 'briefing,' came the even-more awkward head-to-head photo opportunity.

Both men stripped off for one shot, Harris towering four inches over Witter, but the effect neutralised by his knitting needle-thin arms.

Neither men blinked, as is customary, while facing each other. Harris would claim he kept the stare going longer.

Witter can claim he was quickest to return to the relative fascination of his mobile phone.

Tickets:

01302 370777.

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