By Jim Dower: Former heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield (43-10-2, 28 KO’s) kept his hopes alive for getting another shot at one of the titles by stopping 41-year-old Francois Botha (47-5-3, 28 KO’s) in the 8th round at the Thomas & Mack Center, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Holyfield, 47, looked only slightly better than the pudgy and slow Botha going into the 8th. In that round, Holyfield dropped Botha with a nice right hand. Holyfield then landed a flurry of shots, causing referee Russell Mora to step in and stop the fight at 0:55 of the 8th.

At the time of the stoppage, Holyfield was trailing on two of the judges’ scorecards 66-67, and leading on a third by the score of 69-64.

Holyfield looked slow in rounds one through seven, throwing few punches and not letting his hands go like he used to with sustained combinations. Botha, who looked to be carrying around an extra 30 pounds at 250, was surprisingly able to land effectively with right hands and jabs. Holyfield did a poor job of blocking punches. Botha looked like the better fighter through the first five rounds, and was able to hit Holyfield with big shots.

Botha missed with a lot of his wild haymaker shots, but he was still able to hit Holyfield with enough of them to control the action in the first five rounds. The extra weight that Botha was carrying around seemed to slow to cause him to tire out quickly, as by the end of the 5th, he started looked exhausted and old. Holyfield, who had precious little up to that point in the fight, and then began to land with combinations. He still didn’t anything like his prime years or even the form he had in his early 40s, but he was now fighting a lot better than he had in the first four rounds.

In rounds six and seven, Holyfield moved in and out, raking a tired looking Botha with combinations. Botha was now covering up mostly, and resting with his back against the ropes, a telltale sign for an aging fighter. The in the 8th round, Holyfield landed a nice right hand that dropped Botha. After the South African fighter got to his feet, Holyfield went after him and landed a brief flurry, at which point referee Russell Mora stopped the fight. The right hand that Holyfield dropped Botha wasn’t any bigger than some of the other shots that he had hit Botha with in the fight. The difference was that Botha was now looking totally exhausted at this point and ready to go from fatigue alone.

All in all, I’d rate Holyfield’s performance as a 4 in terms of quality fighting. I think he should give up his pursuit of a heavyweight title, because he didn’t look good and I could see pretty much all of the top contenders badly beating him if Holyfield were to fight him. I don’t expect that Holyfield to fight any good top contenders while trying to get another shot at the title.

He’ll likely stick to B level fighters like he did in getting his last two heavyweight title shots and then hope that one of the champions will give him a break. It’s doubtful that the sanctioning bodies will rank him high enough for Holyfield to ever become a mandatory challenger for one of the champions, but you never know in boxing. I’ve seen a lot of strange things in the past couple of years with fighters being ranked at number #1 based on resume alone rather than having beaten anyone of note in their division.

Holyfield said after the fight, “I can get better. I’d been off a long time and I know I can get better. I want to come back very soon.” Holyfield will be 48 in October. I don’t know how much better he can get based on his increasing age. However, if Holyfield is serious about wanting to get a shot at one of the heavyweight titles, he’s going to have to start being a little more active. Before last night’s fight, Holyfield hadn’t fought in over a year. His last fight was in December 2008 in a losing effort against WBA heavyweight champion Nikolay Valuev.