By Dan Ambrose: The December 9th fight between 48-year-old Evander Holyfield (43-10-2, 28 KO’s) and 38-year-old journeyman Sherman Williams (34-11-2, 19 KO’s) has been canceled, according to Dan Rafael. The fight, which was supposed to have taken place at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, Michigan, had already been postponed twice on November 5th and November 12th. There’s no reason given why the fight has been canceled, but the previous cancellations were due to poor ticket sales.

Holyfield last fought in April, defeating 42-year-old Francois Botha by an 8th round stoppage. Holyfield hadn’t fought before that since losing a controversial 12 round majority decision to WBA heavyweight champion Nikolay Valuev in December 2008. Holyfield entertains the goal of sticking around long enough to unify the four heavyweight titles. However, it seems almost impossible for Holyfield to achieve his goal due to his faded skills, his infrequent fights, and his lack of success when he’s been given chances to fight for titles against beatable past heavyweight champions Sultan Ibragimov and Valuev.

Holyfield still has power and might have a small chance if he could get WBA heavyweight champion David Haye to fight him, but the chances of that happening are remote. IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko recently said that he would never fight Holyfield because he has too much respect for him. Wladimir’s brother, WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko likely feels the same way as Wladimir and probably won’t be giving Holyfield a shot at his title.

If Holyfield wants to fight for one of the titles, he’s going to have to work his way to the mandatory spot by fighting his way through the top contenders to get to that spot. The problem for Holyfield is that he doesn’t look good enough to beat any of the top heavyweight contenders at this point in his career.