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Nikolai Valuev beats Evander Holyfield… by majority decision
By Zach Arnold | December 20, 2008
There may not be a more pointless ‘big’ boxing fight booked since… well, a few days when the re-match of Chad Dawson vs. Antonio Tarver was announced. Because, as you know, Dawson/Tarver I did really big business. Sure.
So, how close was the Valuev/Holyfield fight? The score cards said… 116-112 and 115-114 for Valuev, a draw on the third card.
What’s the controversy coming out of this fight? That Holyfield should have won the fight. We’ll start with comments from Bryan Armen Graham at Sports Illustrated. Boxing Scene has a report headlined with this title: Nikolai Valuev robs Evander Holyfield of historic title win.
Topics: Boxing, Media, Zach Arnold | 20 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Never watched it and dont intend to. Holyfield needs to quit. Whats next Holyfield v Bowe 4?
Heavyweight Boxing really is bad. Valuev is actually Top 5 by The Ring Magazine.
http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/boxing/news/story?id=3777382
Interesting article about boxing dying. I typically get bashed on here for making that statement, but the article discusses it very well.
Mayweather is talking a comeback, but as stated before one big fight a year for a sport doesn’t mean it is doing well. Plus, if Hatton beats Manny, it makes it pointless for Mayweather to come out of retirement.
Americans were dominating the heavyweight division throughout most of pro boxing’s history. That’s why boxing is “dying” in America now. Because Americans aren’t dominant anymore at heavyweight. Worldwide, boxing will continue to be alive and well. Even if the promoters weren’t corrupt, the boxers stopped ducking each other, they cut back to 10 weight classes, and they stopped with the alphabet soup, boxing will still be at a low point in America so as long as American heavyweights are no longer #1.
Not perhaps Holyfield won, he definitely did. I had it scored 10-2 Evander, others had it 9-3. The judges scores are atrocious and puts the final nail in the coffin for boxing for me.
I don’t think it is the nationality of the athletes that is killing Heavyweight Boxing in America. It is:
1. The lack of quality of the athletes.
2. The boring style of these fights.
3. The corruption in many of the decisions.
It use to be about “The Great White Hope”. Now we have a bunch of white guys in the Top 10, and nobody cares still. The Klitchko’s are beyond boring. So are the vast number of Europeans.
And let’s not forget that America continues to see an increase in a Hispanic population, and those fighters (regardless of weight class) are not popular enough to keep boxing on most cable stations (including the spanish speaking ones).
I watched the fight with English Comments and switched to German television when the decision was announced. While the American commentators were sure that Holyfield “must have won the fight” the German commentators including Henry Maske, who is one of the most popular German boxers and was the Light Heavyweight Champ for most of his professional career, were sure that it was a close decision and in those cases the judges would prefer the reigning champ most of the time.
Thoug Maske added that the result surely would haven been the other way around when the fight had been held in the US.
2 points most celebs and “experts” were talking about when asked for their opinion after the fight:
1) The fight was boring and slow.
2) Holyfield was in awesome shape for 46 year old.
Let us not forget about one Mr. Evan Fields and what Sports Illustrated had to say in 2007.
Coming into the fight, everything about the promotion was strange. Valuev regularly discussed how unhappy he was with the fight and the use of Holyfield. A US distributor wasn’t found until 2 weeks prior. Nothing has been said about Holyfield’s current promotional team. Holyfield has, of course, nearly lost his home during well publicized money issues relating to his addiction to women. Ruslan Chagaev, who was originally supposed to fight Valuev, suddenly is scheduled to fight in February to defend his WBA Heavyweight crown (Valuev is the interim champ, btw). There was talk about a lot of late money coming in.
Then when the fight actually came, Valuev decided to not fight. This after two of his better performances careerwise this past year. Valuev, who is usually pretty active and throws a lot of jabs, did none of that. He threw nothing. He tried nothing. Did nothing. And that made it look very apparent about two rounds in that something was up.
I used to blow all of my cash to watch Tyson fight; I can’t stand watching boxing now….in fact I feel dumber for having had to read about this and then being compelled to comment on it….
Like I’ve posted many times in the past. Boxing in America needs a credible White Boxer in the Heavyweight Division. This is a guaranteed way to bring attention back to the sport. If the UFC can market and manufacture “White Hopes” (Lidelll, Couture, Frankilin, etc)) to attract a “White Audience”, Boxing should obviously do the same in the Heavyweight division. It’s equivalent to finding a Golden Hen. Unfortunately, apart from Eastern Europeans, there’s not enough American “white boys” who are either good enough or aspire to mix it up in Boxing’s most glamorous division.
I’m not one who usually gives much credit to these sorts of conspiracy theories in boxing. I just figure that pure incompetence is a far more likely scenario in the vast majority of cases.
But, like the gentleman before me said, everything about this one was just “off” from the moment it was first rumored to be happening.
From the strong denials from Valuev about such a match up ever occurring after it leaked out that talks were in progress for it to occur. After which came the complete about face once it was signed & suddenly it was an “honor for him to meet such a legend” …
Then, after a plethora of other rather odd things leading up to yesterday’s contest, we got what was in essence, a complete non-effort from the titlist in defense of his belt. He lumbered through the match as if his feet were mired in quicksand & his fists were bound by handcuffs. It was just bizarre.
He FAR more resembled Lon Chaney Jr. in those old Universal MUMMY movies of the ’40s than he did the man whom I’d seen crush Owen Beck, KO ( a then still useful ) Monte Barrett, drop a VERY narrow split nod to the world class Ruslan Chagaev & then dominate an decent former titlist in Sergei Lyakhovich this past summer.
THAT Valuev should have not only beaten, but probably stopped what was left of the Holyfield that was nearly shut out by “Barbey Rubble” Ibragamov a full year ago.
But, instead, what we got was a soft looking Valuev barely going through the motions for 12 long, dull rounds. Which, by comparison, made virtually EVERYTHING that Holyfield did over the course of the contest ( which, really wasn’t a whole hell of a lot, but … ) look good.
Then came, given what we’d just seen over the 36 minutes of “action”, a complete disgrace from all three judges. Even the fairest of whose scorecard was way off base at 114 – 114.
Something that would’ve been seen as a rather curious anomaly for sure in a fight in which Holyfield clearly won nine out of twelve rounds.
But then, there were the other two judges scores, which weren’t simply criminal in scope like the vote for a draw. No, these two were damned ATROCITIES for giving the Russian giant the victory.
Something which, IMO, made/makes Holyfield’s subsequent blase response to the verdict & his total lack of outrage at being denied a historical feat in what was very likely to be his last opportunity at doing so, odder than hell to me.
Taken as a whole, it all just doesn’t add up.
It’s as if Valuev, was assured of a decision victory going into the contest no matter what, with the understanding that the fight was to go twelve full rounds & that he not really unload on the old former multiple time champ in the process. And, unhappy & totally uninspired by such an arrangement, Valuev simply went through the motions JUST enough to pass the time in the ring.
In other words, the powers that be foisted what was in reality, a glorified 12 round exhibition match off as a legitimate World Heavyweight Championship fight.
Anyhow, that’s one possible explanation for what we were all unfortunate enough to witness yesterday.
So, what’s YOUR theory?
From Five Ounces of Pain:
““Yvel has been cleared through the CSAC (California State Athletic Commission),” said Atencio.”
If this is true, it would make the “New CSAC” a joke, especially given the newly installed ability for fighters to get away with taking steroids if they have a doctor’s prescription and/or if they can show that their supplements have steroids in them.
Regarding the Holyfield-Valuev fight, I didn’t see it and I’m glad I didn’t. I can’t believe that Holyfield is still fighting. Even though he did well on this day, he still shouldn’t be fighting with the cognitive damage that he has.
Even with a “Great White Hope” in boxing, I don’t see it making a huge comeback. Just like with Hockey, the sport of boxing has completely lost a generation of fans. It is nearly impossible to get them back after that happens.
Yvel approved? What a joke. The guy shouldn’t be allowed in a cage or ring in any sanctioned state.
Either way, I can’t find myself to purchase that PPV. The Barnett & Buentello fights do little for me. Belfort is consistently flakey, and something tells me that is 15 minutes of lay and pray fighting. Soko had such bad showings in the UFC, I really don’t need to pay to see him fight.
I actually do like Horodecki/Lauzon. And Fedor/Arlovski is a good fight, but Heavyweights in general have never been my thing.
I don’t know if I’m ordering UFC 93 either. It’s not very strong of a card outside a few key fights.
Boxing is never likely to become one of the three biggest sports in the US again. I think everyone can agree on that basic premise. That said, the idea that its about to die any day now is ridiculous. There’s been articles about that being the case seemingly endlessly.
In other boxing news, Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s people are out looking for fights. LVRJ did a story talking about how he’s lost/spent 35% of his net worth in the last 12 months.
White & black heroism is a dead issue for most people, especially in the Obama era. But nationality, as dave2 points out, is alive and well. Oscar De La Hoya is a non-white boxer who got bigger numbers than Jerry Quarry or Tommy Morrison ever came close to, for example.
Boxing writer Bert Sugar summed it up best when he said the heavyweight division started dying when the NFL started paying better. And that if they didn’t we’d be watching Ray Lewis fight Michael Strahan for the heavyweight title. The Spinks Brothers, Larry Holmes and definitely Mike Tyson were as wealthy, if not more, than top NFL stars. And now it isn’t even close, so what young athlete would want to get brain damaged for a living for less than he\’d make playing football? Therefore I doubt it will ever recover in America. And if there is a good American heavyweight, he’d probably fight in MMA.
MMA is kind of lucky because they can still pull from Amateur Wrestling, which will have a decent number of big white heavyweights for years to come.
Jim Allcorn I share the exact same opinion as yourself….the fix was defo in. Throw in the fact that Holy is short of pennies (allegedly) and it really does all add up.
I had Holyfield winning the fight by 115-113. That was a straight robbery. I can´t understand how Valuev could raise his hands like that at the end of the 12th round. This was some bogus judging, but what do you expect in good old Europe. Saulerland´s and Universum´s Boxers have gotten the nod in almost all of their fights against foreigners. It´s like they are artificially trying to keep German based boxers in business. I won´t even start listing all the robberies that have occurred in the last 15 years. Pathetic. As far as boxing “dying”. Not at all. We just need great HW´s again, because that´s the most popular weightclass.
The Klits would be successful in any era of boxing based purely on being massive, athletic, and technically excellent boxers. Not their fault they are so much better than everybody else in the division. I really wish Evander had won that way Wladimir could finally put him down like a dog.