IT was one of the worst kept secrets in boxing but Scott Harrison, the former World Boxing Organisation featherweight champion whose return to the sport in June following an absence of 6½ years rivalled Lazarus being raised from the dead, let the cat out of the bag yesterday.
While the promoter Frank Warren alluded to the possibility of Harrison challenging the winner of tomorrow evening's WBO lightweight title bout between champion Ricky Burns and Kevin Mitchell at Glasgow's SECC, the sport's reformed hell-raiser claimed it to be a fact.
"Frank has promised me the winner of Burns-Mitchell and hopefully I can make it happen, maybe in November," said Harrison at the traditional pre-fight head-to-head. "I can see the moment in my mind already."
Miguel Aguilar, a Spain-based Nicaraguan, stands in the way of 35-year-old Harrison's dream after his life and career unravelled so spectacularly on the back of 11 world title bouts and nine wins, culminating in him serving a three-year prison sentence in Spain.
Harrison, who stopped the Hungarian teenager Gyorgy Mizsei at the Kelvin Hall on his return to the ring, does not anticipate too many problems in dealing with an opponent who has a record of 10 wins and four defeats, albeit 10 years separate them.
Harrison, who confessed to not knowing a thing about the 25-year-old who will feature on the 11-fight bill, which is expected to attract a near-capacity 10,000 audience, reflected: "I thought the comeback fight went well. Mizsei was previously undefeated and he was tougher than I thought he would be. But I had him down five times and I was happy with my performance.
"When you're in the gym, you can feel good, but it's not until you actually get into the ring that you find out if you've still got it, so it was encouraging that there was no real hint of ring rust."
Harrison confessed to being unable to "call" the winner of the biggest bout in Scotland for more than a decade but he said: "Whoever I fight, I'll smash them to pieces. All I need is the opportunity. There were a couple of times when I thought it might never happen, but I'm here now. This is another step closer to being world champion again and I actually feel better this time round than I did when I was 25."
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