These fights are lose lose fights for the former. You have to win and win spectacularly if you are the younger or "younger" guy. Holy was probably cut slack for not KOing Foreman because he was a former cruiser. But when we look at the less prestigious types of fight. Say, Williams Tyson, and Williams inherited inevitable hate for slaying the legend, the cruel irony is there again, but in more deadly form. Holyfield at 47 can kill legacies in ways that he never could in his 20's or 30's. Just a passing thought...
It's an interesting note for sure. Not to derail the thread with Klit hate, but I'd say a reason that Vitali won't be remembered, at least as highly as some here rate him, is because he lost his "Beat the old guy to establish yourself as the face of the future" fight. Pavlik dropped off the same way when he lost to BHop. And Moorer when he lost to Foreman. I don't know if there's any other examples, but it'd be interesting to see if how a legacy can be affected by such a loss. Moorer never really looked the same. It could definitely argued that Pavlik never really recovered. I suppose Vitali deserves props for bouncing back, but just as Foreman and BHop will haunt them, I think the Lewis loss will haunt Vitali now and when he finally retires. While people like Lewis, Holmes, and Holyfield got a lot of flak when they fought Tyson, Ali, and Foreman, respectively, it at least helped them in hindsight as erasing any doubt that the era was theirs.
Well Holyfield fought a Freak Of Nature who studied up on how to box again. Trained his ass off both mentally and physically to make a come-back and took his time carefully matching up fights to make sure he was on the road to glory. And when he fought Holyfield, felt he was ready to reign again. That Man, despite people ripping on his weight, still looked like a Goddamn American Bison. He looks like an KING here: This content is protected Now I'm not sure how reliable Foreman's words are since fighters tend to change how things really were, but if I recall correctly, in his book, he said he hurt Evander bad at one point and he thought he could take Holyfield out...but because of a dream he had that he killed Holyfield, he remembered at that moment, and held back. He also said that he didn't throw with full force because there was no need to since he didn't want to hurt someone real bad but just enough to knock the guy down. How true that is? Don't know. Maybe it was an excuse because maybe he wasn't quite the puncher like he used to be because of speed loss and age. Don't know. Now with Moorer, I think it was different, which he may have said, because he was behind and had no choice but to unleash with full force. That punch, busted up Moorer's mouth. That aside, I like your post idea.
Good post. Not only did it bust Moorer's mouth (lip) up but it split his mouthpiece in half. Scary power if it lands right. Love that pic btw.
You can also include here the fight of Rocky Marciano against Joe Louis, and Manny Pacquiao against Oscar (although only on hindsight in Pac's case and the age difference wasn't that great compared to the above examples.)
