By William Mackay: While watching former heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield struggle last Saturday night in a losing effort to WBA heavyweight champion Nikolay Valuev, I couldn’t help but compare the 46-year-old Holyfield to the 45year-old George Foreman, who on November 5th, 1994, he stopped IBF/WBA heavyweight champion Michael Moorer to recapture the heavyweight title 20 years after losing it to Muhammed Ali in 1974.
That in itself was an incredible accomplishment, yet what Holyfield appeared to have done (winning a 5th heavyweight title, but being denied when the judges’ gave Valuev the win by a 12-round majority decision) was equally impressive. To get a good comparison of the two fighters at pretty much a similar age, I sat down and re-watched Foreman’s 1994 bout with the then champion Moorer.
To give a more accurate description of my findings, I broke the areas down into several categories which I’ve listed below.
Power
At 45, Foreman still had a great deal of his incredible power of his youth, even though he had been out of boxing for 10 years from 1977 to 1987. In his fight with Moorer, Foreman was landing incredibly hard shots with both his right and left hands. Though his hand speed, never particularly good in his youth, was very much slowed by this point in his career, he still had so much power that it didn’t really matter. When he landed shots against Moorer, there would this loud thud each time, almost like a small explosion. Moorer, to his credit, took the shots well up until the 10th round, but eventually Foreman got to him and finished him off with a big right hand. In contrast, Holyfield showed good power at times in his fight with Valuev last Saturday, but he was only able to land two to three power shots in each round. Part of that was due to Holyfield holding back, looking as if he was afraid to punch himself out. Regardless, Foreman, at forty-five, was the much harder puncher of the two, and able to do it consistently without having to load up. He just naturally punched incredibly hard with every shot. He did load up every once in awhile, but even when he wasn’t, his shots were very heavy.
Advantage: Foreman
Work rate
Holyfield’s work rate against Valuev was very poor to say the least, averaging 15-30 punches thrown per round. Whereas with Foreman-Moorer, Foreman was throwing 50-60 punches per round up until the 6th, at which point his work rate began to drop off steadily. However, he still remained at around 35 punches or more thrown in each round compared to the anemic numbers that Holyfield threw against Valuev. Again, this was probably by design by Holyfield, because he looked as if he wanted avoid getting into a war with the 313 pound Valuev, perhaps afraid he might wear down under weight of Nikolay’s big shots. Nevertheless, the 45-year-old Foreman comes out way ahead.
Advantage: Foreman
Speed
Holyfield is a clear winner here, as he showed that he still has good speed at times in his fight with Valuev. When he was tagged with big shots from Valuev, Holyfield was quick to counter him with combinations. However, the punches didn’t always find their mark due to the huge height of Valuev, but Holyfield looked moderately fast in throwing his shots. By the time Foreman fought Moorer, much of George’s hand speed, what little he had, had already deteriorated, leaving him kind of a slow, ponderous puncher. Yet, Foreman was still able to land his big punches more often than not against the 27-year-old Moorer, and showed that the lack of speed wasn’t as big of a hindrance as some people thought it would be going into the bout. It was a factor, there’s no mistake about it, because a youthful Foreman with better hand speed, would have likely taken Moorer out in the 1st or 2nd round, whereas the older Foreman had to struggle to take him out in the 10th.
Advantage: Holyfield
Defense
Holyfield did an excellent jab defending against the 7-foot Valuev, staying on the outside and using movement to avoid the Russian’s big right hands. I didn’t see Holyfield block too many shots in the fight with his gloves, but he did a fine job staying away and using his legs to keep from taking shots. With Foreman, he had significant problems against Moorer, getting hit often by hard jabs, straight left hands and a slew of counter punches. It was rare that Foreman blocked anything other than with his face. As you would expect, Foreman’s face swelled up badly by the 9th round, with his right eye on its way to closing from the punishment that he had sustained.
Advantage: Holyfield
Foreman vs. Holyfield in battle
I frankly think this wouldn’t even be close. The forty-five-year-old Foreman was still a very dangerous puncher, possessing much of the power of his youth, while at the same time having a sledgehammer jab and a better than average work rate. As Holyfield showed against both Valuev and Sultan Ibragimov, his opponent just prior to the Valuev bout, his work rate is dreadful, probably only enough to win rounds when the other fighter isn’t landing punches.
Holyfield was effective against Valuev only because the giant was unable to cut off the ring and force Holyfield to fight much of the time. This enabled Holyfield to slow the fight to a crawl and eek out rounds. If you let an old car go slowly up a hill, eventually it will make it there. Valuev, the younger fighter at 35, seemed to make a huge mistake of letting Holyfield slow the fight down as much as he did, because if Valuev had pushed him hard and made Holyfield work for a full three minutes of a round, chances are good that Valuev would have beaten Holyfield as easily as Ibragimov did.
At 45, Foreman would have gone after Holyfield, cutting off the ring, which is something Foreman was always good at, and making him stand and trade shots. On the occasions that Foreman couldn’t catch up to Holyfield, Foreman had the much harder and longer jab, and he would have been content to jab Holyfield into submission. In his fight with Holyfield in 1991, a then 42-year-old Foreman landed often with his jab and powers shots against a 29-year-old Holyfield, and made a prime Evander struggle to beat him by a 12-round decision.
In a match-up between of Foreman and Evander at the similar ages of 45, it would be an easy, one-sided victory for Foreman. I doubt he would stop Holyfield, because Foreman would be forced to chase him too much to stop him, but he’d win every round. Holyfield’s poor work rate would doom him to failure against Foreman.
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