Harrison vows to be a world champion again

Perhaps the most welcome sight in recent months has been Scott Harrison in shape and moving off the news pages and back on to the sports pages. The two-time WBO featherweight champion still has his share of problems ahead of him, but opened up a training session to the media in Glasgow on Tuesday and says he wants to be a world champion again within six months.

Life, of course, is not that straight forward. First he must get past a court case, due to start in Glasgow on February 11, then he must successfully apply to have his boxing licence re-instated.

Harrison, though, is nothing but positive. "I should be world champion at super-featherweight within about six months. I will take a tune-up fight in March hopefully then I will be looking to fight for the world title in July.

"But I've never felt better and if they offered me a world title fight today, I would fight today.

"It wasn't a big decision to go up a weight, it was the only decision. Two years ago I could hardly make the featherweight limit and I only stayed there because I was world champion. But I am living a better life these days.

"Even when I was a world champion I was living a terrible life. I was spending money quicker than I was making it. Now I have got my hunger for boxing back. I had lost it when I was world champion, I got a bit complacent. I was brushing aside top ten and top five fighters but I'm looking forward to 2008 and a new chapter in my life."

The big fight out there for Harrison is, of course, Alex Arthur, his sometimes bitter rival from Edinburgh who holds the interim WBO super-featherweight title. Arthur is due to face Joan Guzman for the full title in April, a man whom Harrison was once due to face before his out-of-the-ring problems became out of control.

"Alex Arthur hasn't won the world title yet and he has a tough job against Guzman but let's hope he does win it," he said. "Alex and I would be a cracking fight to stage somewhere in Scotland. I've won the world title twice before so I would be fighting for a world title for the third time and winning the world title for the third time."