Slightly washed up 39 1/2 year old Holyfield vs. Ibeabuchi at his very best. Holyfield had recently fought a draw with Ruiz (in Ruiz's backyard) that many felt he should have won. Vs. Rahman, Holyfield fought well vs. the bigger and younger man. Holyfield was aggressive and had a high workrate. He was ahead after 7 1/2 rounds and earned the technical decision... the fight was stopped due to an accidental headbutt that caused a huge lump on Rahman's head. Accidental or not, it happened and the head is a factor vs. any aggressive fighter Holyfield faced. Tyson came right at Holyfield and caught a few headbutts as well. Ike had won a close toe to toe brawl with Tua and he walked over Byrd in under 5 rounds. So, who wins? How?
Agree. Ike might have had a meltdown if Evander headbutted him. He did in the gym when he thought one of his sparring partners tried to intentionally cut him. He choked the guy.
Did Ike ever flip like that during an actual professional fight? I know he didn't go that far, but did he ever do anything even approaching that? He seemed to keep himself pretty collected in the ring.
Probably coming. The guy has serious mental issues. 'The President' Ibeabuchi has come to admit he's a flawed human being. Five years in lockup have a way of eroding the vanity, the misdirected blame, the false justifications. "I'm more humiliated than (concerned with) spending time in prison," Ibeabuchi says. "I have a moral standard. I'm not perfect. I'm a human being. I was the person preaching on TV and reciting passages from the Bible. But I was a hypocrite." Rage was the common denominator in Ibeabuchi's pattern of outlandish, often criminal, behavior. It made him act irrationally, usually putting others' lives in grave danger. He has been accused of attempted ****, attempted suicide and attempted murder. "He was seriously damaged emotional goods even before he exploded," HBO boxing analyst Larry Merchant says. "My belief, when he got locked up, was that boxing dodged another bullet." Distraught over a perceived snub in the WBC rankings two months after he beat Tua, Ibeabuchi slammed his car into a concrete pillar on Interstate 35 north of Austin, Texas. With him was an ex-girlfriend's 15-year-old son. The boy suffered "numerous injuries" from the accident "and will never walk normally again," according to the criminal complaint. Ibeabuchi was charged with kidnapping and attempted murder, but the courts concluded he was trying to commit suicide, and he was sentenced to 120 days after pleading guilty to false imprisonment. He paid a $500,000 civil settlement. "It was a very frustrating case because what he did wasn't as clearly criminal as what I expected him to get involved with down the line," said District Attorney John Bradley, who prosecuted Ibeabuchi. "I fully expected that his contact with the criminal justice system had not ended with our county. We weren't able to get him examined, but it sure seemed to me -- even if he was a heavyweight boxer looking at making millions of dollars -- that he should have been committed to a psychiatric community and treated." That incident, Merchant says, "began to peel away the skin of the onion." Ibeabuchi developed a new persona based on his nickname, "The President." At times when he was being churlish or refusing to complete a simple requirement such as attending a weigh-in, his handlers would appeal to The President's regal nature by convincing him it was the noble thing to do. "There were times when he thought he was really a president," DiBella says. "He would get into these mental states where he insisted on people calling him The President. It was his alter ago, where 'I am The President,' not of the United States, but maybe the world." Stories began to circulate that both Ibeabuchi and his mother both were seeing demons. Promoter Cedric Kushner says Ibeabuchi on two occasions had to be literally dragged onto airplanes before fights because of perceived demonic forces. Then there was the time Ibeabuchi wielded a knife during a dinner meeting in New York to discuss a possible three-fight HBO deal. "We were having a fine meal at a nice restaurant," Kushner says, "and mid-course Ike picked up a big carving knife, slammed it into the table and screamed 'They knew it! They knew it! The belts belong to me! Why don't they just give them back.' "That was a peculiar experience," Kushner says. "That wasn't the type of conduct I expected to romance the guy from HBO. (Ibeabuchi) was like a Viking." Three months after his decisive triumph over Byrd, Ibeabuchi had more trouble at an airport, and this time it wasn't the demons that refused to let him on board. His flight out of Dallas-Fort Worth was overbooked, and he didn't take kindly to the news. As he stormed wildly through the terminal, police threatened him with pepper spray. "You better shoot me," he replied. They sprayed him in the eyes and handcuffed him. That wouldn't be the last time Ibeabuchi was pepper-sprayed. The next occasion would mark the stinging end of his freedom. 'My Little Secret' Ibeabuchi never cared for the dating game. "I feel women should bow to me," he says. "I have a great ego in going after women. I'm not a person to **** a woman because I'm of the belief she should want to be with me. If she doesn't want to be with me, I don't want to have sex with her." He admits he has a weakness for prostitutes. They're easier to deal with than girlfriends. They're always willing, and they're disposable. "I have had sex with escorts many times," he says. "It's no strings attached. I paid with checks and credit cards. "It was a guilty pleasure. When we have secrets, God has a way of telling you 'I saw what you did.' I thought I could get away with it, but God had to make my little secret public." In July 1999, he was staying at The Mirage Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas when he phoned Room Service -- not the folks who bring food to the door, but a local escort service that comes a-knockin' with something entirely different. Ibeabuchi insists the argument was over the form of payment, that the dispatcher told him a personal check was OK. The 21-year-old woman said she was there to strip and nothing else. She claimed he attacked her in the walk-in closet after she demanded to be paid up front. "He invites her up to his room and begins to get physical with her," says Christopher Lalli, a Clark County chief deputy district attorney. It got loud enough that people in the adjoining room notified hotel security. "When they enter the room," Lalli says, "a woman, naked from the waist down, is running toward them. These are three strangers, and she ran right into their arms." Ibeabuchi barricaded himself in the bathroom, and police discharged pepper spray under the door to coax his surrender. "How can I have the audacity to **** someone I'm paying to have sex with?" Ibeabuchi asks. "In Nigeria, I wouldn't be in prison for what I did. The system here (in the U.S.) makes sure someone gets punished whenever a woman cries. This was a call girl, an escort." Ibeabuchi's defense faced the further difficulty of the Clark County DA's reopening of a similar sexual assault allegation from eight months earlier that took place next door to The Mirage, at sister-property Treasure Island. Still, he was released on bail and placed on house arrest -- able to train and fight again until his trial -- but he was remanded after two more sexual-assault allegations surfaced in Arizona. "The troubling thing for us was this was not an isolated incident," Lalli says. Lalli says the case against Ibeabuchi's crimes at The Mirage was solid. There was physical evidence, eyewitness testimony, a pattern of unacceptable behavior. "It was evidence you don't have nine times out of 10 in these cases when you go to trial," Lalli says. But Ibeabuchi was deemed incompetent to stand trial and was sent to a state facility for the mentally ill. Medical experts concluded he exhibited bipolar disorder, and a judge granted permission to force-medicate him. Eight months later, 2½ years after his arrest, he was ruled cogent enough to plea. He entered an Alford plea, conceding the prosecution had enough evidence to convict him while not admitting guilt. Had he gone to trial and been found guilty of ****, he could have received 10 years to life in prison, but instead he got two to 10 years for battery with intent to commit a crime and three to 20 years for attempted sexual assault, to be served consecutively. "We felt confident he was going to spend a good chunk of time in prison and then get kicked out of the country," Lalli says. Ibeabuchi claims he now has a better understanding of what's right and what's wrong. He has had five years to contemplate his sins. "I was getting away with it," Ibeabuchi says of his old sexual habits. "I thought call girls or escorts were prostitutes. I thought they were choosing to have sex with you for money. I have found I was in error, and now I'm making amends."
:rofl:rofl:rofl I'm going with the consensus of Holyfield winning by DQ. Interesting article posted by lefthook. :good
I wonder what could have been with Ike, solid fighter but his meltdown mentally is just downright scary....the general public think tyson was the king of outbursts & delusional behaviour but most ppl dont remember the president!
ok, so how about the fight? I think Holyfield would be tough enough to deal with an aggressive Ike. The more aggressive fighters have been vs. Holyfield, the easier Holyfield has won. It woudl be a good scrap but an old Holyfield wins by decision.
I don't. I don't think all that much of Evander from say Ruiz onwards and the guy would win one and lose one. And if he did lose, the only rematch was with Ruiz. 39 years old and facing a youthful big combo punching machine looks like a lopsided decision loss to me. I just don't see the highly economical Holyfield 20 punch per round output getting the job done.
to Holyfield wasn't a 20-per-round guy at that time though, he was around double that (right around the heavyweight average). And he looked very sharp in the Rahman fight, best he looked since Lewis II and arguably since Tyson II. He certainly hasn't looked as sharp since. But I don't think Ike is a good style match-up for him. He'd need to approach him as he approached Bowe back in the day, just trying to outslug him up close would be a very bad idea. If Holy can get in and out and box he can beat Ike, otherwise Ike's going overpower him. The Ike-Byrd fight was evenly level on the cards too (3-1 Ike, 2-2, 3-1 Byrd) so Byrd was doing some right things there. He just made the mistake of waiting on the ropes too much.
The cards were wrong imo Ike was giving Byrd an ass kicking, I suppose if you score on the amatuer system you could have it level. The fact Holyfield wouldn't have to find Ibeaubuchi is a good thing, but trying to outbrawl him would be a bad idea, he needs to box him and this Holy is too old for that