By Eric Thomas: Despite getting badly rocked repeatedly by 38-year-old journeyman fighter Sherman Williams in his fight last Saturday night, 48-year-old Evander Holyfield (43-1–2, 28 KO’s) is going to continue his career and fight his previously scheduled bout with 45-year-old Brian Nielsen (64-2, 43 KO’s) on March 5th in Koncerthuset, Copenhagen, Denmark. Holyfield looked old, slow and weak against Williams last weekend. His punches had no steam on them and the only thing that was recognizable in Holyfield’s old fighting style was his bounce and his combinations.
Holyfield’s punching was slower and his combinations mostly missed wide of their mark. When one or two of them would land, they had no effect whatsoever in hurting or slowing down Williams. You could see that Holyfield’s power was gone because the bunches looked incredibly weak compared to his old former of 20 years ago. Holyfield was cut over his left eye from a head butt in the 2nd round against Williams. However, the cut really wasn’t a bad one, but it did cause Williams up up his game a notch as he started throwing power shots after that. Holyfield made the mistake of trying to go after Williams after the cut instead of fighting more defensively.
This made things really easy for Williams, because with his better power and limited mobility, he had Holyfield right there in front of him. Repeatedly in the 2nd and 3rd rounds, Williams was able to land big right hands and left hooks to the head of Holyfield. In the 3rd, Williams staggered Holyfield several times with hard right hands and when the round ended, Holyfield looked ready to be taken out. In between rounds, Holyfield suddenly complained that he couldn’t see out of his left eye, even though the cut didn’t look bad and there wasn’t much blood. The fight was then stopped, and ruled a non contest. It may have saved Holyfield from having to suffer an humiliating knockout loss.
The Nielsen bout is one in which Holyfield is reportedly getting a nice payday, so it’s not surprising that he still plans on taking this fight. However, Holyfield had eight stitches put in over his left eye and it’s going to be interesting to see how well this will have healed by the time he fights Nielsen on 3/5.
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