Evander Holyfield – upsetting the odds once again?

Janne Romppainen

11.12 - If a fight fan has learned anything about the heavyweight division during the past decade it is that you should never pick against Evander Holyfield. He has upset the experts so many times that it shouldn’t be considered a surprise anymore if he won a world title or two in the future. Still, most people are writing his chances off again next weekend as he faces the tricky contender Chris Byrd in a fight for the vacant IBF title. Is it possible that the Holy Warrior proves everybody wrong again and takes home a new belt?

By defeating ex-champion Hasim Rahman by technical decision last time out Holyfield proved that he still can mix it up with the top cream of the division. He has the toughness, heart, experience and strength to compete with anybody. But this time he is facing an opponent who is not actually hard but rather a complicated type. Is he still fresh enough to solve the puzzle that has left many big strong men frustrated?

Stylishly it looks like Chris Byrd is the worst opponent possible for Holyfield at this stage of his career. Holyfield likes to go to war, he likes to slug it away until only one man is standing. If that was the case now I wouldn’t doubt his chances at all, but he can’t do that now. He faces a guy who isn’t there to be hit but who is bobbing, ducking and rolling away, firing flurries that don’t cause too much serious worries but that score points. That is not the type of fight in where Holyfield has proved his greatness.

Holyfield’s record from his last six fights is a modest 2-2-2. That is not a very promising record for a campaigner of a heavyweight title but again we have to remember who are we talking about. After drawing and losing to Lennox Lewis Holyfield faced John Ruiz three times before his last match against Hasim Rahman. After the second Ruiz bout he looked as though he was finished, but he came back to dominate Ruiz in the rubber match (which was ruled as a draw) and to pound out a victory over Rahman. Especially in his last fight he rumbled like a youngster despite his matured age.

But maybe the Rahman fight made him look too good. As I pointed out earlier, Rahman fought just the type of fight The Real Deal wanted him to by staying right in front of him. Holyfield hasn’t lost his fire, but that fight didn’t give us information about his movement and reflexes which usually decline first. He will need those attributes to be sharp in his fight against the quick-fisted southpaw next Saturday.

It is also interesting to see how Holyfield has planned to beat his opponent. Byrd has usually had it pretty much his way against slower opponents even if they were world class with David Tua being the most noteworthy name on his record. Holyfield however is quicker than Tua but is that enough?

Byrd has been defeated twice in his career by Ike Ibeabuchi and Wladimir Klitschko and once he has been able to escape from the jaws of a certain defeat as Vitaly Klitschko had to retire from their fight because of an injured shoulder. In these fights Byrd was knocked out in five rounds by Ibeabuchi and soundly outpointed by Klitschko. When we consider Holyfield’s strategy for the bout, Byrd’s fight with Ibeabuchi is much more relevant. Klitschko dominated Byrd with his huge reach and size advantage which Holyfield doesn’t possess.

Ibeabuchi in turn was able to catch Byrd with furious pressure and after flooring him with thunderous uppercut also finish him quickly. It is to be seen if Holyfiled can employ the same kind of strategy successfully. Unfortunately for him he hasn’t been that type of fighter in the past few years. Holyfield’s common game plan is to attack with about thirty-second-long spurts and if he can’t get an advantage with it he takes about a minute off before getting aggressive again. This type of game plan is not easy to make work against Byrd. As we know he is a great defensive fighter and extremely hard to trap with a bull-rush. It’s hard to imagine a scenario where he would get caught in the centre of the ring.

One positive message that the Ibeabuchi fight brings to Holyfield is that Byrd can indeed be knocked out. Ibeabuchi did it practically with one shot (the other knockdowns were result of the first one). If Holyfield finds a place for the right hook that flattened James Douglas back in 1990 then maybe he can finish the fight early. Byrd has demonstrated an excellent chin in his other fight though, and Holyfield is not the puncher Ibeabuchi was.

The way I see for Holyfield to come out as a winner is to go back to his old strategy and keep a continuous pressure on Byrd. With his chin he doesn’t have to worry about Byrd’s counterpunches too much. Not to give him room to use his movement, make him worry about your own punches and try to outwork him, that might be the key to the decision victory. After all, Tua was able to win four or five rounds against Byrd and Holyfield can certainly put up a higher work-rate than him.

From my point of view, the facts are on Byrd’s side. Isn’t he just too young, too quick, too tricky? The truth is, I don’t know. When it’s about Holyfield, nobody does, so that’s why this fight is too hard for me to pick. The Holy Warrior just might give us a masterful boxing performance once again. Or maybe the age has finally caught up with him and he loses widely? I can’t make up my mind but if you can, leave your comment.

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