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Tony Harrison seems more impressed with Luis Arias’ performance during their run-in earlier this spring than in the ring this past weekend.
The former WBC junior middleweight titlist made a point to scan out the result from Arias’ ten-round win over journeyman Jimmy Williams this Saturday at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. The preliminary bout preceded a Showtime Pay-Per-View event topped by Gervonta Davis’ sixth-round knockout of Rolando Romero, with Arias rebounding from an upset points loss to Vaughn Alexander last December.
All three judges scored the bout 99-91 in favor or Arias. The harshest judge of them all, though, was a fighter he clearly attempted to goad into a future clash.
“Luis Arias, you f——’ suck,” Harrison tweeted immediately after learning of Arias going the ten-round distance with a made-to-order opponent in Williams (18-8-2, 6KOs). “Like, to be boxing this long, you really f——’ suck.”
Harrison clearly hasn’t forgotten when Arias crashed Harrison’s pre-fight press conference this past April 7 in Las Vegas. Milwaukee’s Arias hurled insults and even an object—a rubber duck—at Harrison before the Detroit native stepped off stage to approach Arias, throwing a punch as the two were already being separated before returning to the podium to finish his portion of the press conference.
Harrison (29-3-1, 21KOs) went on to soundly outpoint Spain’s Sergio Garcia (33-2, 14KOs), winning by scores of 100-90, 100-90 and 98-92 in their April 9 Showtime-televised co-feature form Virgin Hotels Las Vegas. The 31-year-old junior middleweight contender remains in the mix for a high-profile fight later this year.
It clearly won’t come against Arias, a fringe contender whose upset win over former unified titlist Jarrett Hurd last June has been the lone bright spot of his career in recent years. A solution was offered to perhaps bring the fight to fruition down the road.
“Let me call Al (Haymon, Harrison’s adviser and PBC creator) to see if he can open up the first fight on my next,” Harrison suggested. “He need all the work he can get.”
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox