By Jim Dower: Soon to be 48-year-old former International Boxing Federation/WBA/WBC heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield (43-10-2, 28 KO’s) will continue his slow climb back to another heavyweight title shot by taking on 37-year-old journeyman Sherman Williams (34-11-2, 19 KO’s) on November 5th at in Detroit, Michigan. Holyfield has lost two out of his last three fights and has slipped out of the heavyweight top 15 with losses to Sultan Ibragimov and Nikolay Valuev. However, both of those fights were for the heavyweight title despite the fact that Holyfield had done very little to deserve a shot at the title other than beating a handful of 2nd tier opponents.
Since his loss to Valuev in December 2008, Holyfield took more than a year off from boxing and then returned this year in April to beat 41-year-old Francois Botha by an 8th round TKO on April 10th. Holyfield looked good for a 47-year-old, but not nearly as good as many of the top 15 heavyweights. However, Holyfield may not need to fight any of the top contenders to get another title shot. All he likely will need to do is to keep winning against 2nd tier opposition and he’ll likely get another title shot in the near future.
But Holyfield is going to have to start being a lot more active to get wins under his belt in a hurry if he wants to move up the rankings to the point where he can’t be ignored by the champions. The bad news is that it may be hard for Holyfield to get a fight against the Klitschko brothers, who hold three of the four heavyweight titles. However, Holyfield could get WBA heavyweight champion David Haye to get him a shot at his title, but that’s only if Haye can stay champion long enough for that to happen.
If Haye fights either of the Klitschko brothers, he’ll likely lose his title by knockout and then Holyfield may actually have to fight a top contender or two to get a shot against the Klitschko brothers. Holyfield’s best chance of a title shot is against Vitali Klitschko, who appears to be open to fighting older fighters. Vitali could be facing 38-year-old Shannon Briggs in October. If Vitali is willing to fight Briggs, who has done pretty much zero in the past couple of years in terms of winning meaningful fights, then Vitali could show some interest in fighting the soon to be 48-year-old Holyfield in the near future. It’s a fight that would do well in Germany, but will likely be ignored in other parts of the world such as the United States.
Williams is coming off a 10 round decision loss to German based Manuel Charr last October in a fight that Williams very well should have won. He looked very good in that fight and gave Charr all kinds of problems. If Williams fights the same way against Holyfield, he may just beat him. It’s unclear whether Holyfield has enough left in the tank to beat a guy like Williams. This could be a very tough fight for Holyfield. To be sure, Holyfield would have dominated a guy like Williams in his prime, but Holyfield is way past his prime now and very beatable.
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