Elimination time for Holyfield, Byrd, Tua and Rahman

By Clinton Mollett

11.11 - To ruffle up a few feathers in the heavyweight division, boxing's Lord of the Rings Don King waved his magic wand and got Lennox Lewis to vacate his IBF title. This in turn forced the International boxing federation into organizing an elimination tournament between it's top four contenders... Holyfield, Tua, Rahman and Byrd, in order to find a new champion. The tournament will open with ex-WBO Champ and IBF No.1 Chris Byrd facing off against 4-time world heavyweight champion and IBF No.2 Evander Holyfield who at age 40 is still riding high after a recent win over former Lewis conqueror Hasim Rahman.

The battle worn old veteran who gave as some great fights against Riddick Bowe (1- 2), Michael Moorer (1-1) and Mike Tyson (2-0) used to be considered more than just a threat in the heavyweight division but as of late the holy man is now a weary old soul who managed only 2-2-2 in his last six fights and chances are his name will appear in Chris Byrd's "w" column before the year is out. Byrd the slippery little southpaw that he is, will then be the proud holder of the IBF title.......for now.

Next on the IBF heavyweight agenda is the vertically challenged powerhouse that is David Tua who will be battling it out with former world heavyweight champion Hasim Rahman sometime early next year, that's if Rahman doesn't pull out of the fight. I see this one panning out to be a repeat of their 1998 encounter in which Rahman was tko'd in the 10th round after catching a left hook at the end of 9th and failing to recover.

This time however I say Tua will get the job done a lot quicker given the fact that the Tuaman, who turns 30 on the 21st November, has showed remarkable improvement in his last two fights and he has found something new to hit people with, a overhand right which knocked the senses out of his good buddy Michael Moorer and proved to be a career saver in his crossroads battle with prospect Fres Oquendo while Hasim Rahman's career seems to be heading south after his 4th round KO loss to Lewis last year and he did not look at all impressive against Holyfield in his last fight either.

Although Rahman does have a good jab, it did not play a big part in his fight with Holyfield so if he wants to have any chance of beating Tua and avenging his first loss as a professional then he'd better invite his jab along to the fight and not have it sit in the second row like he did in a slugfest with Holyfield.

Now were left with Chris Byrd who will most likely be the newly crowned IBF champion when he beats a four decade old Holyfield. His reign will not last long however, as he will still have to face new IBF No.1 contender David Tua who will be fresh off another win over Hasim Rahman.

The Byrd-Tua contest will be the big one, the two most avoided guys in the division up against each other, last time Byrd managed to evade Tua's left hook to win a close 12 rounder. This time I see a different outcome with Tua a little bit wiser now after being physically ruined by a bunch of nutrionists that he hired to help prepare him for his first fight with Byrd, needless to say I don't think he'll be working with those guy's anytime to soon. A properly perpared Tua will eventually catch Byrd somewhere in the late rounds to capture the IBF title and become the official winner of the IBF elimination tournament.

Lennox Lewis may not be interested in any of these guys though, since he has already beaten three of them (Tua W12, Holyfield W12, Rahman WKO 4) and has made it clear that he doesn't want to fight Chris Byrd, so a shot at the Heavyweight Championship may be out of the question for the winner of this tournament...for the mean time anyway, but by June next year David Tua will have his first World title in the bag... and we can all stop dreaming about the winner of Holyfield-Byrd fighting the winner of the Ruiz-Jones Jr fight because it's not going to happen for obvious reasons.