Boxing: Hagler hurt by Harrison farce

Of the many shameful aspects of the ongoing fiasco of Audley Harrison's £1m contract with the BBC, nothing is worse than the compromising of one of the greatest fighters of the 20th century, Marvellous Marvin Hagler.

It is is bad enough that the body in receipt of our TV licence money hypes beyond reason such embarrassments as the Olympic champion's Saturday night defeat of the haplessly ambling giant Julius Long. But the involvement of Hagler, sheepishly mouthing euphemisms which scandalise a superb career which was shaped partly in the old, relentless school of the Philadelphia ring, seems like some ultimate insult to the tradition of a game which so far has been mocked on each of the four times Harrison has stepped into the ring as a professional.

Someone at the BBC should have the guts to recognise the scale of the disaster.