Prime Holyfield VS Prime Lewis

That's funny. I have a newspaper quoting the following:

"LAS VEGAS – Now, they are even.

Eight months ago, Evander Holyfield got the benefit of a disgraceful and possibly criminal decision when two alleged fight judges named Jean Williams and Larry O’Connell gifted him with a draw in a fight he clearly lost to Lennox Lewis.

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Last night, Lewis got the birthday present, courtesy of three judges who should be subjected to even more scrutiny than those two hapless souls faced after the Agony at the Garden.

Last time, the job was pulled off by a crew of two. This time it was a Gang of Three, and they made off with boxing’s biggest prize of all, the undisputed heavyweight championship.

Lennox Lewis gets to wear that honor today, the first “Englishman” to hold it since Bob Fitzsimmons lost it in 1899, and no doubt he will wear it proudly.

After all, this is a man who took the WBC belt out of a garbage can, won another belt over a man who was in the middle of a crying jag, and only this week was happy to strap the belt of something called the IBO around his waist, again without winning a fight.

But with the exception of the way he fought the ninth round, Lennox Lewis had little to be proud of last night.

In a fight that had two great rounds, two good ones and nearly a half-hour of posing, pawing and clinching, the names you will remember today are Bill Graham, Jerry Roth and Chuck Giampa.

They are the ones who decided that last night would be Lennox Lewis’ night, even after Holyfield had cut him, shook him up in the third, nearly stopped him in the seventh and pushed him all over the ring in the 12th.

And despite the presence of more than 10,000 Brits in the 19,000-seat Thomas & Mack Center, the chant that reverberated through the hall in the closing minute of the bout was for Holyfield.

Maybe this is boxing’s way of telling Holyfield it is time to quit, or maybe the message is coming from an even higher authority. But if Holyfield can’t win a decision after the way he fought last night, perhaps he just can’t win anymore.

It wasn’t his greatest performance, as he had predicted it might turn out to be this week, but it was enough to intimidate Lewis after three rounds, leave him gasping for breath after seven, and reduced him to resorting to a pitiful, after-the-bell flurry as the fight ended.

Holyfield did everything he failed to do in the first fight, when he was spared a loss despite doing nothing.

Last night, he did it all for eight rounds, tired for three of the last four, and closed te show with a decisive round 12.

His reward this time was a kick down the ring steps, a shove out the door.

“I hit him with some good shots and I thought it would catch up with him,” Holyfield said. “I did all that I can.”

It should have been enough. Is this the way boxing plays even-up, by making up for an atrocious decision with one that was even worse?

“The big thing in life is that you give it your all,” Holyfield said. “When it falls into the judges’ hands, you have to live with their decision.”

Holyfield left the ring with a sad little smile on his unmarked face as a good chunk of the crowd rushed to meet him at the bottom of the ring steps.

Lewis, puffy-faced and cut over the right eyebrow, was serenaded by the British fans as he left, but this time, it sounded forced and almost embarrassed.

“Right now, I’m gonna chill out and relish the moment,” he said. “I went through some trials and tribulations with him in there.”

And in truth, Lewis showed one quality he had rarely shown in his previous 36 fights, the ability to stand up to a pretty good beating and fire back.

But the 10th round could have been subtitiled, “Lennox Lewis, This Is Your Life.” After leaving Holyfield so shook up he literally stumbled back to his corner to end the ninth, Lewis fought the 10th as if he had suddenly been thrown into a cage with a lion.

He posed, he pawed, he tried to hold Holyfield off with an outstretched left arm. He did everything but press his advantage at the only point in the fight where he had a real chance to win it decisively.

It was his entire career boiled down to a three-minute segment, and even the highly-partisan crowd jeered when he went back to his corner at the bell.

Once again, Lewis could not force himself to cross the fear threshold. Presented with the perfect opportunity to knock out Holyfield out, he could not overcome his own fear of being knocked out.

It was perhaps the most shameful round ever fought by a man daring to call himself the heavyweight champion of the world.

By contrast, Holyfield, giving away 25 pounds and three inches in height, continually risked his safety to bore inside Lewis’ long arms. He outworked Lewis in nine of the 12 rounds, shook him with right hands in the third and seventh, and walked through Lewis’ best shots.

And even if somehow, the Three Blind Mice had it close entering the 12th round, there is no way they could have given the last round to Lewis. Holyfield won the round, and the fight, going away.

The Post had Holyfield a 116-112 winner. Roth’s card was 115-113, Giampa 116-112 and Graham, who is 83 years old, somehow marked his card 117-111, all for Lewis.

In the first creditable move it has made in years, the IBF announced after the bout it would declare the title vacant, but for the wrong reason: Lewis, feeling he had been robbed the first time, refused to pay its sanction fee.

This time, it should be Holyfield who holds onto his money."

 

Damn, Mongoose just put some on ownage on that kid.