One-sided dust-ups have stations counting cost

TV VIEW: It was a week of unequal sporting contests where little guys got badly beaten up by big lads, like Rob Calloway against Audley Harrison, like the British Davis Cup team against Australia - indeed, like the Manchester United defence against Shaun 'The Goat' Goater.

At times these pairings were so lopsided they bordered on bullying and left the viewers reaching for the nearest pillow to cover their eyes.

Perhaps Calloway, though, is most deserving of our sympathy, not least because he got hardly any from the crowd, despite ending up looking like Lesley Ash, post-surgery.

"Brentford Leisure Centre, will you get on your feet and make some noise," roared the MC at the start of the evening's proceedings, shown 'live and exclusive' by the BBC on Saturday.

Credit to Brentford Leisure Centre, it responded by getting on its feet and making lots of noise, but those who watched Harrison win gold at the 2000 Olympics couldn't help but ask: "It ain't Las Vegas, is it?" And Calloway, a 33-year-old health-club owner from Missouri, ain't Rocky Marciano-in-his-prime either.

But, as Audley would tell you, you can only beat what's put in front of you and he has now won all nine of his professional fights, largely against men who would be out-muscled by your average granny at the Roches Stores sales.

Although, in fairness, Calloway started well enough on Saturday, remaining on his feet until the end of the fourth round, at which point his corner noted that his jaw appeared to be broken.

"Does it hurt, Rob?" they asked.

"Mhgjkzl," he replied.

Fight over. The crowd was incensed and booed Cowardly Calloway. Harrison wasn't impressed either.

"He has a broken jaw," the post punch-up reporter informed him.

"Yeah," sighed Harrison. "It's a shame for the fans, really - they wanted to see more action."

("Mhnxzwtrh the fans," as Calloway might have put it).

"But the Audley machine rolls on," said, em, Audley.

Next? A 47-year-old retired bank clerk from Weston-super-Mare? Probably.

The BBC will be there to cover it, though, even if John Inverdale is beginning to wonder if 31-year-old Audley should get a move on in his professional career.

"He's running out of time, isn't he?" asked special guest Tim Witherspoon, the former world champion.

"That's right," said Tim, "he's running out of time, but there's no hurry." Well, that's alright then.

Incidentally, Audley recently appeared on a celebrity version of The Weakest Link on which, in response to the question "In sport, the name of which famous racehorse was the word 'murder' spelt backwards?", a contestant (not Audley) replied: "Shergar".

Speaking of whom, this house doesn't lie when it says that it heard a Shergar expert being asked last week, on the 20th anniversary of the horse's disappearance: "Is there any hope of him turning up alive?"

No offence, but we felt this reporter was flogging a dead horse - which is kind of what fans of British tennis have been doing for quite some time.

"Two hundred years ago the Poms came here to get flogged - nothing's changed," as the T-shirts proclaimed among the crowd at the Davis Cup tie between Britain and Australia in Sydney.

The Daily Telegraph previewed the event by saying Britain's Davis Cup team was "a euphemism for two lads in short trousers ranked jointly 788 in the world".

Harsh, but true. After all, Timmy Henman and Greg Rusedski were unavailable, so Lleyton Hewitt and Mark Philippoussis were up against household names like, like, like...anyway.

Australia won - no kiddin' - and the BBC was left to wonder about the wisdom (and cost) of airing these matches - live and exclusive - at four-ish in the morning.

At least the Beeb had had a good snooker week. Did you see Jimmy White beat Peter Ebdon at the Benson and Hedges Masters? It was a victory that made you feel the world wasn't such a bad place after all.

Inevitably, Jimmy lost in the next round - Stephen Hendry ended the dream this time.

"Another classic where I got beat," sighed Jimmy, the only man in history to be forced to withdraw from a tournament because of a hair-transplant injury.

The final telly word of the week, though, goes to Derek McGovern, one of the presenters of Channel Four's Sport Talk.

"It's an incredible rise to stardom," he said of the likely call-up of Wayne Rooney to the England squad on Saturday.

"At 17 you're more likely to get a call from Michael Jackson than Sven Goran-Ericsson."

To which we said: he's baaaad.