tns-2

www.insideboxing.com

By Ron Brashear
Inside Boxing Writer
INSIDE BOXING (06/01/02)- Boxing fans were treated to a REAL GOOD DEAL on Saturday night, thanks to Evander Holyfield and Hasim Rahman. From the sound of the opening bell, it became obvious that both of these men came to win by their determined efforts of exchanging thunderous punching with harmful intentions. However, it was Evander who demonstrated, once again, that he is still very much alive in the Heavyweight race of boxing!
This fight was stopped at 1:40 seconds into the 8th round by an accidental head butt that 1st surfaced in the 4th round and caused a knot on Rahman's head that eventually became larger than your average Florida Grapefruit. The fight was then placed in the hands of the 3 judges to tally the scorecards. Two judges had Holyfield winning 69-64, while the third had Rahman ahead 67-66 (not sure what fight this judge was watching).

Evander clearly was out-classing challenger Hasim by giving him a boxing lesson that will remain etched in Hasim's mind for some time to come. It's hard to imagine that Holyfield is within six months of being a 40 year old man. The way he was handling Rahman, you would have thought that Evander was 10 years younger than the "Rock". Giving the fact that Holyfield was landing his power shots at a 56% connect rate (102 out of 196) by effectively punching in combinations, its slightly unfortunate this bout was not able to come to its more than likely conclusion, a even more dramatic stoppage by Holyfield. Nevertheless, this fight places Holyfield 1st in line to challenge the winner of next week's Tyson/Lewis title fight. Evander would then be striving for becoming an unprecedented 5-time Heavyweight Champion of the World. Evander, in his 45th fight, improved his record to (38-5-2, with 26 KOs) thus, further planting himself into boxing history archives as one of the greatest Heavyweights of all time. As for Hasim Rahman, now (35-4, with 29 KOs), there is still hope for him to remain a worthy challenger in the heavyweight division, just not at the Championship level. In my pre-fight article, I referenced him as a counterfeit (note - this was only in the context of being a Heavyweight Champion). He can still perform well against the B-class level of Heavyweights out there today. However, with further coaching of boxing fundamentals, there could still be hope for him to gain another opportunity some day, just not right now against the A class of fighters. In closing, the stage is now set and if "Iron Mike" comes correct, there are a lot of fans that would love to see HOLYFIED VS TYSON III. Now that would be a bite, excuse me, I mean fight, for the boxing fan's appetite!

You have just gone insideBOXING.com.