bear with me here. there's been a lot of bad robberies in boxing...but one i think was sad, in what it would have meant to the history books, was holyfield vs valeuv be interesting to hear other thoughts on it. he would have become the oldest world heavyweight belt holder that night.....he'd have been a 5 time world heavyweight belt holder....he'd have been a 6 time world belt holder inc cruiser. for what it would have meant to holyfields career on paper, his legacy, the amazing achievement of a 22 year gap between world titles and cementing his place in boxing history (even more) and allow him to go out on a dream fairytale ending which would have been spoke about probably forever in the sport. i think he was robbed of a lot that night.
He was robbed! All people wanna talk about is his first fight vs. Lewis. Sure, Lewis beat him in their first fight but it was scored a draw... NOT A WIN for Holyfield, Lewis kept his belt, so not a total robbery. A case can be made that Holyfield deserved the decision in the rematch but it was scored for Lewis. A case can be made that Holyfield beat Moorer in their first fight, it was scored for Moorer. Holyfield stopped him in their rematch. One judge scored the 2nd round 10-10... Holyfield knocked Moorer down in this round. I thought Holyfield should have won 2 out of 3 vs. Ruiz.
I remember I scored Holyfield-Lewis 2 for Lewis by 1 point. Holyfield might have won the last Ruiz fight as well if I remember right even though I did not score it. As for Holyfield-Valuev: no disrespect to those 2 fighters, but I did not care who won that fight. Holyfield was moving away and Valuev couldn't follow him. Technically you could score it for Holyfield but then again, this fight was one of the worst I ever saw in my life and I didn't think it mattered who got the decision. Valuev is tough, but it pains me to say it, he had a typical career of a "world champion" who fights out of germany: lots of gift decisions. I remember he should have lost the Larry Donald fight, probably the Ruiz fights and 1 or 2 fights which I won't name now looked fishy to me. And I don't mean to disrespect the german world champs, but honestly a part of their career is always fabricated. Huck should have lost at least 3 or 4 fights, Ottke should have lost to Reid, Glen Johnson, Tate and Brewer etc. And Valuev, even though he was not as bad as people say he was, also had his share of fishy decisions/fights.
I have posted this a lot, but if you consult the Ring magazine that reported on Holyfield-Valuev, it scored for Valuev. It also posted a poll from ringside taken by a Swiss newspaper which had something like 48 of 54 of those consulted scoring for Valuev. It is rare, but it is possible for a fight to look completely different on television than it does at ringside. Usually this is related to the overall affect the landed punch has upon judges and journalists. This doesn't translate always via television. I believe this was such a fight. At the very least I would like for someone to produce a report from ringside that has Valuev the winner. Because I have never seen one.
I would say the most clear cut Holyfield robbery was Moorer I. As pointed out, he would have actually got the decision had the judge bizarrely omited the knockdown. On the flipside, I actually scored Bowe II for Bowe. Lewis II and Ruiz III come to mind as close fights, you could make a case for Evander winning. My initial impression was that Evander deserved the win against Valuev, though it was a total stink fest that I really have no intrest in revisiting. Stink fests like that hard to score, so who knows.
I watched this last night, so the fight is still fresh in my mind. It's honestly one of the worst decisions I've ever seen. Al Bernstein & his co-commentator gave 1 round to Valuev, out of kindness more than anything else. No, Holy dd not do a lot, but Valuev did nothing whatsoever. As Bernstein said, it was one of the most shameful and pathetiic displays by a champion he had ever seen. The only reason not a bigger deal was made of this absolutely disgraceful decision was that Holyfiield was ancient and nobody cared about Valuev.
I see it like this: Holyfield would have broken Foreman's record as oldest HW world champion. Foreman took a prime Michael Moorer's punches the whole fight and then knocked him out. Holyfield on the other hand fought Valuev by moving away from him the whole fight and throwing a few punches, then moving away, then moving away some more and so on. Foreman said after his fight with Axel Schulz that you don't win the Heavyweight Championship of the world by running away. I disagree with Foreman because I don't think Schulz ran from him and I think Schulz clearly deserved the decision. But: What Schulz and Holyfield did was not the same in my opinion. I felt Schulz took the title from Foreman while Holyfield didn't take it from Valuev.
When placing everything in context, yes, he was "robbed" very badly in the same way that you can say one's life being shortened by cancer robs them or something like that. The sense of the word used outside of boxing circles, as in "robbed by misfortune". In terms of it ranking head to head against other unpopular verdicts in boxing history, no, it's hardly even a bad robbery - let alone up there with the worst. IMO Holyfield deserved it, but it was a close and difficult to score contest and you can see why there was a case for Valuev in a lot of the rounds. It probably wasn't even the robbery of the year. (although I can't remember off the cuff what else happened around then) It was a very mild one if you can even call it a robbery, in the boxing sense of the word.
While boxing is a hurting game and I shouldn't think of things like this I do think the one positive thing about Holyfield not winning is probably saving himself a pretty big beating from one of the Klitschko's. Though like I said, I know many of us don't feel sorry if someone chooses to get in the ring with someone else, and it's not like Holyfield would have felt sorry for himself. In terms of the fight, I think I thought Holyfield won at the time but never thought he was robbed and I'm certainly not going to watch it again to verify my score, lol.
