Holyfield vs. Botha on April 17th?; Meehan vs. Chagaev in WBA heavyweight title eliminator
February 21st, 2010
By Sean McDaniel: The sagging career of 47-year-old Evander Holyfield (42-10-2, 27 KO’s) could get some new life. The Las Vegas-Review Journal is reporting that Holyfield could be facing 41-year-old heavyweight Francois Botha (47-4-3, 28 KO’s) on April 17th, at the Orleans Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas, Nevada. The fight, if it takes place, would match two former heavyweight champions who are clearly on the downsides of their careers. Still, the fight would be appealing to some diehard fans of the two fighters.
What Holyfield hopes to accomplish with a fight against Botha is unclear. It obviously will give Holyfield a paycheck, but if he is hoping to use this fight as a catapult for another title shot it’s not likely to happen. Holyfield has already lost back to back title shots against champions Ibragimov and Valuev.
Holyfield will likely have to get busy and put together another string of victories if he wants to get another title shot. Holyfield threw a year of his career by fighting after his loss to Valuev. That’s unfortunate because Holyfield could have used that time to get in two or three shots against B class opposition, which would have put him in a good position for yet another title shot by now.
Holyfield’s skills have obviously eroded somewhat, but his name value is still high and the heavyweight champions need a name fighter to oppose them, even if Holyfield isn’t fight at the level he once did earlier in his career.
***
Kali Meehan vs. Ruslan Chagaev in WBA heavyweight title eliminator
Former World Boxing Association heavyweight champion Ruslan Chagaev (25-1-1, 17 KO’s) and Kali Meehan (35-3, 29 KO’s) will be facing off in a WBA heavyweight title eliminator with the winner of the bout to become the mandatory challenger for WBA heavyweight champion David Haye.
As of now, Haye has a fight next up against mandatory challenger John Ruiz. The winner of that fight will have to face the Chagaev-Meehan winner. The 39-year-old Meehan has been waiting a long time to finally get another shot at the heavyweight title. Meehan, 6’5”, was defeated by then WBO heavyweight champion Lamon Brewster by a controversial 12 round split decision in September 2004.
Meehan fought remarkably well in that fight and seemed to have Brewster out on his feet at point after catching him against the ropes and pummeling him for an extended period of time. Two months later, Meehan was easily defeated by Hasim Rahman by a 4th round stoppage in November 2004.
Since then, Meehan has won six consecutive fights against mostly 2nd tier opposition. Of those wins, his sixth round stoppage over the hard-hitting DaVarryl Williamson in 2007 is easily the best of his victories. Meehan, however, hasn’t been very active since 2004. He also hasn’t fought since beating Dominique Alexander by a 2nd round knockout in August 2008.
Chagaev, 31, is coming off a 9th round stoppage loss to IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko in June 2009. Chagaev was never competitive in that fight and ended up taking a one-sided beating from the large Ukrainian. Chagaev hasn’t been very active in the past three years due to chronic health problems.
Chagaev should win this fight as long as he doesn’t get clobbered by some of Meehan’s big shots. Kali can punch a little and if he opens up with some of his flurries, he could give Chagaev some massive problems. Chagaev, 6’1” is a lot smaller than Meehan and we could be seeing another Klitschko-Chagaev replay if Meehan goes at Chagaev hard early in the fight.
Tags: 8 Responses to “Holyfield vs. Botha on April 17th?; Meehan vs. Chagaev in WBA heavyweight title eliminator”
Leave a Reply
please use above banner to link back to us!
I think that Chagaev deserves a shot at Haye. It was actually his and not Valuevs title in the first place. Because Haye obviously won’t fight any of the Klitschkos this would be an interesting matchup. Chagaev is a very good skilled Boxer. If however Haye would win this fight i would give him much more respect that so far because it would be his first real win at heavyweight. Right now he is just a paper champion.
holyfield was robbed against valuev, he did more in 5 rounds than haye did in 12. id love to see holy do it 1 more time but id hate to see him get hurt trying .
Man holyfield a old as punch drunk fighter, quite unfortunate how his life turned out all the best to him.
WBA can try to force who they want. John Ruiz is the mandatory and after that its going to be a big name. Fighting Holyfield will be an experience against a very dirty fighter but Holyfield will end up in hospital.
Chagaev does not belong in the ring after pretending to have Hepatitis to get out of fighting Valuev only to turn around and fight Klitschko for more money.
this is don king’s circus which suits haye perfectly, there are good fighters out there, but haye will be protected from them by don king…a fighter under 35 would be a start for haye…meanwhile haye will pretend everyone is scared of him…i read a repot of vitali slapping haye,,,,”haye looked terrified and did a little jig” as though to make the big guy laugh rather than kill him…i also saw a video of vitali taking away hayes cowboy hat, looking at it disdainfully and plopping it back on haye’s head…he never moved, never opened his mouth….he’s terrfied of vitali plain and simple…and that’s why don king plains to protect him from the evil k bros.
Its funny that both these fights are WBA eliminators because thats exactly what would happen if any of these guys fights David Haye. Botha – This guy would last 2 rounds tops. Meehan – He would last the same. Holfield could go for maybe 4 rounds and Chagaev would go 6 rounds tops. They are all too old and too slow and the shots hitting them would be too fast and too clean.
But what can you do? Outside of Povetkin, Adamek, the Klitchkos and Haye… its a wasteland of the washed up and the over-rated.
Haye would destroy Ruslan.
awesome to see ruslan back!
if he lost that clear to wladimir doesnt mean hes a bad fighter. i really hope he get the shot at david haye! he would get killed from that left hand.