Four-time heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield (42-8-2, 27 KOs) is poised to win his fifth heavyweight title next month when he travels to Moscow, Russia to take on undefeated WBO heavyweight champion Sultan Ibragimov (21-0, 17 KOs) on October 13th. Never mind that Holyfield, 44, has done little to deserve a shot at the title since making his comeback to boxing following a two-year suspension by the New York State Athletic Commission due to “diminishing skills” following three consecutive losses to Chris Byrd, James Toney and Larry Donald.
Since making his comeback, Holyfield, ranked # 13 in the WBO, has faced in the following order: Jeremy Bates, Fres Oquendo, Vinny Maddalone and Lou Savarese. None of them, however, are ranked in the top 10, a fact which makes his shot at a title rather unfair given the fact that he’s essentially leapfrogged over 12 other fighters that are ranked ahead of him in the WBO. In the old days, a fighter had to earn his way to title contention by fighting and beating the best fighters, slowly working his way to the # 1 spot. However, in Holyfield’s case, all of that has seemed to have been thrown on the window to allow Holyfield yet another shot at a title.
By Kevin Dinkins: Since destroying Lamon Brewster in six brutal rounds last month on July 14th, there’s been a tremendous amount of curiosity about who IBF heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (49-3, 44 KOs) will elect to fight next. Of the names most bandied about, Corrie Sanders and Evander Holyfield have come up the most. Since Wladimir has a non-mandatory defense coming up, he’s free to take on a lower level fighter like these two, not that they’re not credible opponents, mind you, but clearly not at the top of the class at this stage in their careers. Normally, Wladimir would fight a lower guy, possibly someone in the lower top 10 or possibly as low as 14, but a big problem right now, unfortunately, is that many of the fighters in the top 10 are busy and have fights coming up.