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Holyfield Auditions For Punching With The Stars
TUE August 22, BUSTER PARIS - Round 2 and Jeremy “The Beast” Bates is backing up the legendary and hall of fame bound Evander “The Real Deal” Holyfield. Bates launches out a giant right hand that snaps Holyfield’s head towards his right shoulder and causes the former Champion to pay a visit to the ropes - it’s one of those punches and reactions that will be on Jeremy’s highlight reel. The one singular clip that he’ll proudly show his grand kids over and over again.
After the bout when asked about that punch – and what he thought as he connected - Jeremy’s response was so forthcoming and honest that you couldn’t help but chuckle and appreciate his moment:
“…Oh my God, I just caught Evander Holyfield”
Friday, August 18th at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, TX – Evander Holyfield (W 39 - 26 ko's, L 8 & D 2) makes his first attempt at this comeback. He’s an amazing 43 years old and has been out of the ring for about 2 years. His opponent is a decade younger – a 32-year-old Jeremy Bates (W 21 - 18 ko's, L 12 & D 1) – and Jeremy is no powder puff or Pillsbury Dough Fighter – he looked to be in good shape and was a big, solid 225 lbs.
What makes this additionally risky as a first comeback match is that the extremely classy and fair playing Holyfield gave Bates 8 weeks notice for the fight - and that’s important in that in this business these types of opponents are only given like a weeks notice – so Bates had time to train.
The night though was all about Evander and in a sense an audition into the current Heavyweight division – and more to the point Evander needed to answer the big question - is he still that washed up fighter that lost so horribly to Larry Donald.
Can he go from Dancing With The Stars to Punching With The Stars.
The fight itself was pretty good – in one respect it was what you’d think this type of fight would be – a 2nd round TKO victory for Holyfield, but it was also somewhat competitive, yes Evander was never in any real danger, but that’s a hindsight look as we weren’t sure which Evander was in the ring yet.
Bates was actually the aggressor and kept trudging forward forcing Holyfield back. Jeremy threw some solid bombs and had a right hand that would have sent most opponents to the canvas – specifically he landed an enormous right in the 2nd round at like 1:10 that steered Evander towards the ropes.
Evander fought well moving backward and for the majority of the match was on his toes, bouncing, sticking, moving and throwing very pretty combinations – which we haven’t seen from him in years.
In the 1st round – the last 10 seconds – Holyfield had Bates in the corner and went to town on him. You had the sense that either Jeremy was an exhale away from going down or that referee Rafael Ramos was a punch away from stopping the fight - and then – the bell rang.
In the 2nd round at like 24 ticks remaining Evander is all over Jeremy and raining down with a brutal and pulverizing gale of lefts and rights - as if he were training on one of those Body Opponent Free-Standing Heavybags – referee Rafael Ramos had to stop the storm with 5 seconds left in the 2nd round.
When all's said and done it was a perfect comeback fight on all fronts for ‘The Real Deal’ – and today - I’m actually glad he’s back.
It’s funny – Evander right now holds a lot of my fellow Yank’s hopes for an American Heavyweight Champion – he is to some extent this generations Joe Louis and because of his age there’s the inspirational George Foreman angle for geezers like me to cling to.
Is Holyfield ready for the next level of competition? – If it were up to me I’d get him two more tune up fights in the next 4 months or so before stepping up in class – and even that step up would not yet be against the top 10 – it would be one of the folks ranked around 11th to 15th – if all that goes well - then go after a belt.
All that’s left to say now --- welcome back Evander.
Buster Paris can be reached at: bparis@talkingboxing.com - and always enjoys receiving your thoughts, comments and questions
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