32 years ago today Evander Holyfield beats Larry Holmes in 12 for heavyweight boxing title.

Holyfield s last undefeated fight.

 

Man Holmes was awesome in this bout, sarcastic looking the whole time, just sort of there mockingly blimp sized on the ropes while the mini Mr Olympia just kept running into a wall.

 

Anyone else thinks Holyfield's title defences were kinda mid? 42 year old Foreman, journeyman Bert Cooper, 43 year old Larry Holmes, lost to Bowe, lost to Moorer, journeyman Vaughn Bean, lost to Lennox. Only Tyson II and Moorer II stand out. He of course has great wins winning the titles against Buster, Bowe and Tyson, but the defences weren't anything special.

 

After 1993 Holyfield was up and down I think.

 

Yes, Holyfield was clearly more impressive gaining titles than defending them.
The opposite of Lewis.

 

To be fair, he was always up and down in the 90s:

UP: Great start in the division with the pinnacle of beating Buster to become the champion.
DOWN: After that he struggled a bit with old Foreman, went life and death against Cooper, struggled a bit against old Holmes and then lost to Bowe.
UP: Defeated Bowe in the rematch.
DOWN: Lost to Moorer.
UP: Had a good go against Mercer.
DOWN: Got destroyed by Bowe in the trilogy fight and looked uninspiring against Czyz.
UP: Destroyed Tyson twice and then destroyed Moorer.
DOWN: Uninspiring efforts against Bean & lost to Lewis in the first fight despite it being a draw on the card.
UP: Performed better in the rematch with Lewis despite still clearly losing.

 

Except for the Rahman rematch.

 

To be fair the Cooper fight was a late replacement he originally would've fought Damiani who pulled out at the last second.

But looking at the rankings i don't think Holyfield missed too many names.

Holyfield's first reign between 1990-1992....

He fought Douglas, Holmes, Foreman.

Douglas was ranked highly obviously after the Tyson win.

Holmes shot up in the rankings after beating Mercer who was originally ranked 5th.

Foreman was ranked 6th.

The only other names more highly ranked were Ruddock. Tyson, Bowe. Ruddock/Tyson were obviously fighting each other over 2 fights and then when Holyfield tried to fight Tyson at the end of 1991 it got postponed because Tyson injured his rib. And then when Tyson went to prison that pretty much ruined any chance of that fight happening.

So Holyfield fought the next best name at that time which was Bowe.

I guess the Cooper fight was considered a bit of gimme at that time but as i said that wasn't the original fight that was supposed to take place.

So i think it's just a bit unlucky for Holyfield during that time that Tyson went to prison because i'm sure that fight would've been made otherwise.

 

The fight was oficially made but Tyson pulled out due to the rib injury.

 

He could definitely take his eye off of the ball. His best form in terms of title defences definitely came after he on the title from Tyson, he defended it again against Tyson on the rematch and got his revenge against Moorer in impressive fashion, but context matters, he always was obsessed with providing the public wrong in relation to people dismissing him against Tyson, which people were still doing for the rematch, and also in context against Moorer, he wanted his revenge, I don’t think he ever became someone who want prone to taking his eye off the ball against lesser competition, because against Vaughn Bean, he was unimpressive, although he was a tricky opponent tbf.

 

Yeah Bean was a spoiler and could make opponents look bad.

He's not a great opponent but he's not an easy fighter to stop either.

The only fighter who stopped Bean was a prime Vitali and Bean was almost 40 years old and still went 11 rounds.

 

Can't argue with you at all on this,,,,

 

What is strange with the Bean fight is that Evander looked as good as ever in the first four rounds, and then literally aged overnight.