So, there was about 13,000 ticket sell out at the Hallonstadion, Zurich, Switzerland, last night, and the seats packed with boxing fans inside the stadium. While those who were not there at Hallonstadion glued to their TV sets to see what was vouched to be the most enthusiastic year-end boxing bout that happened a couple of hours ago. A before-match survey estimated that the match would be watched by over 1 billion people from over 100 countries.
The fight saw two legendary boxing giants, the Russian Nikolai Valuev and former World Boxing Champion Evander Holyfield. Although, Nikolai Valuev was favored to win, it wasn’t a cakewalk or should I say one-punch bout? The duo exchanged bouts for about 12 rounds in which Valuev narrowly won.
The two boxing legends fought for the WBA title and Nikolai Valuev clinched the defending title with what is a majority win in what we saw a fast-paced fight.
Veteran Evander Holyfield displayed a brave fight while pitching to get crowned for fifth time. In fact the match saw Evander after a hiatus of almost one year after he lost a match to Sultan Ibragimov in a consensus decision during October 2007. The 46-year-old boxer in fact seemed to be quite aggressive at the beginning of the match. The first saw him land a punch to the Russian’s face with a right hand and second round was the best of Evander with 3 punches
He scored 116/112 and 115/114 and the next score card was a draw with 114/114. Middle stages of the match, say from round 6 American boxer seemed obviously tiring and the 7-footer Nikolai took an upper hand. During the 9th round Holyfield fumbled but not knocked down in real sense, but this saw the Russian gain advantage.
In fact, Nikolai was not at all attacking and during the first half he had been more than defensive awkwardly positioning his body. He bettered the American heavy weight after 6th round with constant jabs and ruling him out for the coveted crown and favoring the Russian Valuev to defend the vacant title (August 2008).
End of the bout saw Valuev speak very high of his veteran opponent. He says after the victory, “ He was a strong opponent and made me work very hard for the win. And, It was a challenging and a hard fight and Evander was unbelievably fast with his punches.”
Although, the match saw Nikolai Valuev won the title, Boxing fans across the world are
admittedly unhappy of his poor display of fighting skills. The match would certainly give added confidence to Ukranian Klitschko heavyweights. Their manager, Bernd Boente remarks, “for the sport, this match is a disaster.”
No matter Holyfield lost the match, but it saw him win impressive $US 980,000 and tremendous publicity in his country. The match saw Hallonstadion reverberate with chants of the fans cheering loudly “Holyfield,” as if it were his home place. The four-time champ Holyfield says, “my goal is to be heavyweight champion of the world, I am not interested in fighting for the sake of fighting, I want to be a champion again.”
The winner of last night’s match, Nikolai Valuev will now have to defend this title fighting with the former WBA champion, the Uzbek boxer, Ruslan Chagaev in June 2009. Chagaev earlier this year relinquished his title due to an AT injury.
[...] (Boxing Match Results Details Here) [...]
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