As fight fans know, Irish heavyweight Kevin McBride, best known for retiring Mike Tyson in 2005, will box Evander Holyfield on June 5. Now aged 47, McBride feels he will defeat 58 year old Holyfield and then get a rematch with Tyson.
Plenty of boxing fans are already weary of the big-name exhibition bouts that are seemingly coming thick and fast, with no apparent ending in sight. However, some fans are fine with the likes of Tyson, Roy Jones, Marco Antonio Barrera, Erik Morales and others coming back.
To plenty of people, these fights between ageing legends are fights they simply cannot resist watching. Call it a car-crash curiosity type thing if you wish, but as the Tyson-Jones bout proved, these events can attract big numbers and pull in big money. Ask yourself this, if enough people want the product, does that make it a bad product? Or are we bad people for wanting to watch these fights, thus encouraging the next 40-something, or 50-something to launch their own ring return?
McBride is super-excited about his June date with Holyfield and he insists the fans should be too.
Here McBride, 35-10-1(29) and inactive since July of 2011, speaks with ESB:
“Tyson Fury is a big inspirational figure to me. He’s beaten all the odds,” Mcbride said. “The way he got up in that fight, in the last round [against Deontay Wilder] that was amazing – it had the whole world talking! And Tyson Fury has beaten the drugs and the alcohol, he’s overcome so many odds. One of my biggest wins was beating the alcohol, I’ve been sober for seven years now.
“I’m so excited to be getting another big opportunity and I will give it my all. The great Marvelous Marvin Hagler passed away a short time ago as everyone knows. I drew so much inspiration from being around Marvelous and with me being trained by his trainer, Goody Petronelli – he was in my corner the night I beat Tyson. That was the greatest night of my life at the time. I even met Muhammad Ali that night in 2005, he said to me, ‘I’m the greatest, you’re the latest!’
“But now, after I beat Holyfield, me and Tyson can fight our rematch. This is exciting stuff for boxing and fans know they want to see it. Myself, I’m ready to make more history. Irish boxing needs a lift after Carl’s [Frampton] loss. I’ll give it to them on June 5th.”
So, will YOU be tuning in on Triller on the night of June 5?