Evander Holyfield fighting Hasim Rahman with Don King as promoter. It doesn’t really sound like the fight that had to be made, does it? Nevertheless, it appears the pair will fight on June 1, the week before Tyson/Lewis.
Fighters will be fighters, and I understand Holyfield has a few dozen children to feed. Commander Evander is the pound-for-pound champion in the siring-children-by-multiple-women division.
Still, has anyone listened to Evander lately? The man’s punch drunk. Even by professional boxing standards.
If Holyfield and Muhammad Ali worked on a construction site together, and Ali was the foreman, I seriously doubt the Greatest would allow Evander to operate a forklift.
Holyfield’s voice has a Robitussin resonance to it. Somebody needs to tell Evander to pull off the road, into the rest stop and retire from boxing. Oh, and have a vasectomy.
Rahman is still a viable fighter, but Lennox Lewis exposed him for what he is in their rematch. The only decent shot Rahman got in is when he flung Lewis through a table in a pre-fight scuffle. Hasim’s a better wrestler than boxer.
Oleg Maskaev knocked him out of the ring. Raise your hand if you are impressed with Oleg Maskaev.
Raise your hand if you know who Oleg Maskaev is.
Maskaev subsequently lost to Kirk Johnson and has disappeared from the top 10 in the heavyweight division.
Win or lose against Holyfield, Rahman will follow Maskaev shortly.
So, two declining fighters with no apparent reason to fight each other (or anyone else, for that matter), and yet, this fight is getting made. Which brings us to Don King.
Generally, nobody pleads with promoters to retire, but doesn’t it say something about Don King’s promoting skills when he’s reduced to putting on this kind of nonsense? Yes he will make money and that’s why he’s putting it on. I understand that.
Remember the good old days when King promoted the big fights, when he put on Chavez/ Taylor, or Mike Tyson championship bouts (pre-insane Iron Mike)? King would put the fights on, steal half the purse, leave fighters destitute and construct a tight little rhyme about the whole mess.
He really hasn’t done that in a while. I half expect Don King to set up a benevolence fund for down-and-out , aging boxers. There needs to be a Dr. Kevorkian for the careers of people who stay in boxing too long.
Don King should be first in line to hook up to the suicide machine.