Last month, former gold medal-winning boxer Audley Harrison made the decision to end his career in the ring.
The 43-year-old, who turned professional in 2001 after the 2000 Olympics, joined us on Off The Ball tonight to give us an insight into his decision and to look back on his early life and career.
The issue of potential brain injuries sustained in the ring was a key part of his decision.
"I had a couple of little issues I was dealing with and I looked at all the medical research on brain injuries and concussion, and then I made the decision that I've got to call it a day. I don't want to, but I have to," said Harrison.
"When I was in university, I did my thesis 20 years ago on the justification of boxing in modern England. I looked at all the stats and all the research that had been done and at the time, there was no real link between boxing and Parkinson's. You couldn't say Muhammad Ali had Parkinson's because of boxing 20 years ago. So I fought against that and said the bottom line is boxing does have a danger element and people do die in the ring, but statistically the likelihood of that happening to me or anyone else was like getting on a plane and it crashing," said Harrison, before discussing pugilistic dementia.
The ex-European heavyweight champion looked back on his decision to turn his life around and discovered boxing at the age of 19, having spent a period in a young offenders institute for theft.
"I had really done everything the wrong way. I came from a broken home, so everything was set up for me to fail and once I made a decision to turn my life around, I was going to make it," said the Londoner, who also explained his decision to take up a university place.
He also feels, not winning a world title was down to circumstance outside of his control, given that he promoted himself.
"I lost that world title, not in the ring. I lost it in the boardroom fighting the promoters and the cartels," he said, detailing the conflicts which hampered him and led to a sort of breakdown just over 10 years ago.
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