Valuev showed with this fight (not only this fight) that he is not a great champion. He was lucky not to fight a younger version of Holyfield.
Holyfield boxed him up, I watched this fight live via the method at the time and was wondering how the HELL they didn't give this fight to Holyfield. Disgrace
Hello. Every time this fight comes up, I have one thing to say: Almost EVERY ringside reporter scored this fight for Valuev. This was the first "robbery by internet" in that all these guys sat at home watched the fight online then rushed to the message boards to denounce the terrible robbery. But The Ring was ringside - 116-112 for Valuev - and they got wind, and they polled ringsiders. I forget the exact number but it was about 47/52 media people plus the judges had it for Valuev. Fights aren't scored on tv.
apparently the WBA was going to investigate it, I have also read things that mentioned Valuev's ties to Russian politics and that scoring it for Holyfield may have made Russia look "weak" within the scope of Europe at the time
You would have to delete my account outright to stop it. Which I think is a valid option, really. Highly recommended.
Maybe they are wrong though? I wouldnt rewatch that fight if I got paid but I remember Holyfield clearly winning. Valuev sucked, he was just huge. If you look at that eye of the ring cards the consensus is also that Holy got robbed....
This is the fight to go to bat for among all the judging in the entire sport? I'm not going to zoom out to some relativist fantasy based upon a horrible performance from a chump champion. Oh I guess my eyes deceived me, I guess I can't score fights on film any more. Over a clearly bullcrap performance from Nikolai Valuev? I don't think so.
A bit but that's mostly over-egged anyway. Whenever you really dive into it with people about why someone is picking someone (I find it hard without coming off like an *******) it's so rarely, "Frazier has this little tell before he throws the right hand, Schmeling has a history of reading this sort of thing" and so often "how can Schmeling beat Frazier if Frazier beat Ali?" So most people's fanstasy fight picks are nothing to do with fights on film. It's amazing how few people actually watch boxing, even here. I mean really, really watch it.
I think it was Valuev's jab, btw, that was the difference. On TV it didn't come across well, for those adjacent to the action the punch was getting it done.
Yeah, folks generally metabolise the general styles/size/punch resistance then look at who did what to whom.