By Jason Kim: According to the latest boxing news, this Saturday’s clash between aging heavyweights Evander Holyfield (42-10-2, 27 KO’s vs. Francois Botha (47-4-3, 28 KO’s) isn’t selling well in terms of ticket sales for the fight at the Thomas & Mack Center, in Las Vegas, Nevada. The La Vegas Review Journal reports that less than 1000 tickets have been sold for the Botha-Holyfield duel as of Wednesday.

That’s an incredibly small number for a Center that seats over 18,000 fans. Unless there’s a late ticket surge with walk in sales, it’s not likely to budge much. It’s pretty surprising, really, because Botha and Holyfield are a couple of well known old warriors and you would think with their popularity that the fight should be selling better than this. Perhaps the interest in the fight will pick up by Saturday.

But as of now, there has been almost next to nothing being said about the fight in the internet boxing forum and precious few articles about the fight either. One problem that may be hindering the fight is the lack of recent success for both fighters, and not to mention their advanced ages. The combined ages for both fighters are 88, which is kind of high for heavyweights. Holyfield, 47, has lost five out of his last nine fights, including his last two. Whereas Botha has two draws, one loss and three wins in his last six fights. Botha’s recent wins have come against strictly B level fighters.

Holyfield says “Whoever shows up is going to see I still have it.” Let’s hope so. Holyfield didn’t appear to have it in his last two losses to Nikolay Valuev and Sultan Ibragimov. With Holyfield now even older, it’s hard to imagine that he suddenly has it again, that is, unless he’s found the fountain of youth and is starting to age backwards. Holyfield would have to get a lot younger real quick to start looking good again, because he hasn’t really looked impressive for at least since stopping Michael Moorer in the 8th round back in 1997.

Probably Holyfield’s best years at heavyweight where from 1990 to 1992, when he was very impressive. He started showing signs of wear in his first loss against Riddick Bowe in 1992, although Holyfield continued to have a great deal of success for another seven years until 1999, when he started to slow down and get beaten more and more on a fairly regular basis.

Holyfield hasn’t won a fight in three years since beating Lou Savarese by a 10-round decision in 2007. That fight was part of a four fight win streak for Holyfield. However, he’s lost his last two bouts and hasn’t fought in a year and half since being beaten by Valuev in December 2008. It would be hard to imagine that Holyfield has gotten any better with the time off. If he wants to beat Botha on Saturday, Holyfield will have to remember to throw more punches. That was his main problem in his loss to Valuev. Holyfield simply didn’t throw enough punches and got out-worked by the seven foot Valuev.

Botha doesn’t look like the same fighter he once was, and has put on some weight around his once trim midsection. However, in Botha’s three fights last year against Ron Guerrero, Timo Hoffmann and Pedro Carrion, Botha proved to be a tireless worker on the inside. If he works as hard against Holyfield on Saturday, he’ll probably get the win on work rate alone. Holyfield can still punch a little, but he won’t be able to win unless he ups his work rate a couple of notches.