Three judges decided that 46-year-old Evander Holyfield lost by a majority points decision in his bid to claim the WBA heavyweight title from Nikolai Valuev. This and the almost reverential chants from 12,500 fans of "Hol-y-field, Hol-y-field," which echoed throughout the Hallenstadion in Zurich, represented the most dangerous verdict for a man whose delusions are verging on the deranged.
If Holyfield required any further reason to continue with his futile, hazardous efforts to regain a heavyweight championship belt, this, unfortunately, was it.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Holyfield Robbed
I was shocked that Evander Holyfield should have won yesterday's bout with Nikolai Valuev, but it makes the post from Friday more, not less, relevant. Brian Doogan explains:
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2 comments:
I can remember a time when I knew every big bout that was coming up. I even enjoyed watching the up and comers do their thing from time to tome. But its the fact that the boxing organizations are even sanctioning a championship bout with Holyfield in it thats part of the reason why I can take or leave but mostly leave boxing now. I mean I can't really fault Holyfied because if he can still make money doing boxing why SHOULD he stop? He has kids and ex wives to take care of as well as his own expenses and I doubt if he could get a desk job anytime soon. But these santioning bodies that keep throwing money at him should be held account if or when he suffers long term brain damage.
At some point somebody is going to have some do some serious reform of boxing or sooner rather than later its going to fade into obscurity.
This is a really tough question, because Evander's got to pay the bills, and he can still make a buck, so it's almost un-American to tell him he can't fight anymore. But that the fact that there's no really good solution doesn't mean that the situation today can't be improved upon. Maybe it could be like you say a matter of holding the sanctioning bodies to account, which could come from a federal commission to replace all the state bodies. If a federal body put Evander on some sort of watch list for medically suspect boxers, and he kept fighting and the WBA sanctioned his fights, then if he were to suffer brain damage that federal body could force the WBA (or the WBC or whoever) to split his alimony-child support-medical costs he suffers brand damage. That wouldn't be perfect, because Evander would still be suffering, but it could be a deterrent in the future.
But yeah I couldnt agree more that the people running boxing need to realize that, aside from the political bs that makes boxing less fan-friendly, the public doesn't want to watch athletes regularly suffer life altering injuries.
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