By Jason Kim: If you wanted to see a fight that would guarantee to disappoint and put you into a rage, then you could go no further than to watch WBA heavyweight champion Nikolay Valuev’s (50-1, 34 KOs) victory, a 12-round majority decision, over Evander Holyfield (42-10-2, 27 KOs) tonight at the Hallenstadion, in Zurich, Switzerland. The victory, one of the most controversial bouts that I’ve personally ever seen, allowed Valuev to hold onto his WBA title for a little while longer. Holyfield, 46, who was looking to add a 5th heavyweight title to his collection, got the bad end of a rotten decision. Holyfield dominated most of the fight, out-punching the younger, bigger, stronger Valuev in almost every round and landing the harder shots.
Going into the fight, few people gave Holyfield much of a chance to win the fight, but after seven rounds, in which he seemed to have won all of them quite clearly, it appeared that he was proving every one wrong. Unfortunately, the judges’ didn’t agree with most boxing fans and experts alike, giving Valuev the victory by the scores of 116-112, 114-114 and 115-114.
I personally had Holyfield winning by eight rounds to four. I’m not sure which fight the judges’ were watching, because Valuev was doing nothing in most of the fight until the very end, and by then, he looked to be trailing by a sizable margin and needing a knockout to win. In the first seven rounds, Valuev jabbed continuously with an ineffective jab, which seemed more like he was trying to scratch Holyfield rather than punching him.
Holyfield met his jabs with right hands and left hooks, landing well. He wasn’t throwing jabs like Valuev, but his right hands were more than enough to win all of the first seven rounds, mainly because Valuev’s jabs were so poor and weak. It wasn’t like Valuev was hitting Holyfield with a Wladimir Klitschko-type jab, because they were far from it. He had nothing on them, absolutely nothing, making it hard to give him credit even when he was landing with them.
The judge’s, obviously, felt different. Rounds eight through twelve were much closer, with Holyfield getting hit more often in these rounds, throwing less punches and getting backed up a lot. Still, thought Holyfield looked good enough to win at least two of the rounds which should have been more than enough to get the decision.
The decision is likely to leave a bad taste in the mouths of many boxing fans, many who will probably complain long and hard about this questionable decision and want the decision overturned. If the WBA has any common sense, they’ll call for an immediate rematch to rectify this questionable outcome. It’s unfortunate for Holyfield, who if not for this terrible decision, would have picked up his 5th heavyweight title and it would have set him up for future big fights against Ruslan Chagaev or the Klitschko brothers. Now, that’s all been erased, leaving Holyfield to go back home and try to sort out what to do with his career.
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