By Dan Ambrose: 48-year-old Evander Holyfield (43-10-2, 28 KO’s) will continue his fading career on Saturday night against 38-year-old journeyman Sherman Williams (34-11-2, 19 KO’s) in a 10 round pay-per-view bout at The Greenbrier, White Sulphur, in West Virginia. This is a fight that Holyfield is taking to knock some of the rust off while he hopes to have one of the heavyweight champions hand pick him for yet another title shot. Hoyfield says he wants to fight the the heavyweight champion Klitschko brothers and WBA heavyweight champion David Haye before retiring. Holyfield’s chances of getting a fight even against one of those fighters is pretty much slim and none.
Holyfield’s way of going about getting a title shot is flawed, because instead of facing serious contenders in the top 15, Holyfield has opted to go after older fighters like 42-year-old Francois Botha, Sherman Williams and soon 45-year-old Brian Nielsen. Wins over those fighters will do nothing to entice the champions to fight Holyfield. For him to get one of them interested, Holyfield needs to forget about facing older fighters and focus on trying to knock off someone like Eddie Chambers, Alexander Povetkin, Ruslan Chagaev or Samuel Peter.
At least one of those fighters would likely agree to fight Holyfield. However, it would be a big ask for Holyfield to come up with the skills needed to beat one of them. Perhaps this is why Holyfield isn’t even trying. He’s focusing on the fighters that he can beat, and hoping that he’ll get the fights that he’s craving against one of the champions.
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