FanHouse EvanderHolyfield

The 7-foot Russian Nikolai Valuev defeated Evander Holyfield by a close majority decision today in Zurich, retaining his WBA heavyweight title and, in the process, showing just how worthless the WBA heavyweight title is.

One judge scored the fight a draw while the other two scored the fight 116-112 and 115-114 for Valuev. If I wanted to be charitable I'd say Holyfield showed he still has something left at age 46, but the truth is, Valuev showed he's not much of a boxer.

Holyfield said afterward that he was disappointed by the decision and he would think about his future. He fell to 42-10-2, including 0-4-1 the last five times he's fought for a heavyweight belt. Valuev improved to 51-1; he has avoided top competition for most of his career.

Here's the promo for tomorrow's "heavyweight title" fight between Evander Holyfield and the 7-foot Russian Nikolai Valuev:

Quick question: Will anyone watch this thing on pay-per-view? DirecTV isn't even offering it, and since DirecTV usually caters to sports fans more than the other cable and satellite companies to, I have to assume that this will do, at best, a few thousand pay-per-view buys in the United States.

The 41-year-old former heavyweight champion of the world Riddick Bowe was back in the ring on Saturday. Here's the best video I could find of his unanimous decision win over Gene Pukall:



Bowe weighed in at 271 pounds, or 36 more than he weighed in 1992 when he beat Evander Holyfield to become the heavyweight champ. It was his first fight since 2005 and just his third since 1996.

Reports this week indicated that Nikolai Valuev, the 7-foot, 320-pound Russian boxer, was set to fight the 46-year-old Evander Holyfield later this year.

But that fight -- which would be for the WBA heavyweight title -- will apparently not take place. Valuev's manager, Boris Dimitrov, said this:

"We have nothing but respect for Evander Holyfield and we revere his amazing accomplishments. I don't want to insult Mr Holyfield but he is nearly 46. Nikolai doesn't want to box him. That will be ridiculous."

Yes, it is ridiculous that a 46-year-old man would fight a 7-footer for a heavyweight title belt. But lots of ridiculous things have happened in the sport of boxing. So I wouldn't be at all surprised to see this happen.

Evander Holyfield will celebrate his 46th birthday next weekend, but if you think that's too old to box, well, he disagrees.

Holyfield will reportedly fight the Russian giant Nikolay Valuev for the WBA heavyweight title belt in December. It's a fight in which the 6-foot-2, 220-pound Holyfield will be 11 years older, one foot shorter and 100 pounds lighter than his opponent.

There really isn't a bad time to be allowed that wonderful image of having your wife cutting off your penis with a steak knife while you sleep. Ahhhh, memories.

John Wayne Bobbitt, the gentleman (we can still call him a man, right?) that lost more than half his 9-iron in that "Sweeney Todd" experiment has decided that his autobiography might not be weird enough, agreeing to fight Greg Smith, the barber that punched out Marion "Suge" Knight during a street-fight in Hollywood.

Norm Clarke of the Las Vegas Review Journal is reporting the two are set to fight on November 15.

Bobbitt, 41, is training for a Nov. 15 celebrity boxing match in Philadelphia against Smith, the barber who made news in May when he knocked out rap mogul Knight during a street altercation in Hollywood.

Bobbitt was scheduled to fight Joey Buttafuoco in a televised celebrity match several years ago, but the event fell apart. Earlier this year, Bobbitt agreed to slug it out with former baseball star Jose Canseco, but the promoter switched to former NFL player and BYU standout Vai Sikahema, who pounded the beefier Canseco into carpaccio.

Former Miami Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino is denying internet reports that he will be on the upcoming season of "Dancing With the Stars".

Marino even called the Dolphins to tell them the rumors are false. After all, the team was so thrilled that active player Jason Taylor did it.

A report on 'In Touch Weekly' said that Marino, singer Toni Braxton, model Kim Kardashian, rodeo champion Ty Murray, singer Lance Bass and Florence Henderson of Brady Bunch fame, are scheduled to compete on the ABC-TV reality dance competition in which Taylor finished runner-up last season.

Marino, a CBS-TV NFL analyst, attended the Dolphins intrasquad scrimmage last Saturday. One of the reasons Marino retired had to due with his lack of mobility after a ruptured Achilles' and several surgeries on his knees.

Marino's manager said that the show has been pursuing him for years and the Hall of Fame QB isn't interested. Former and current athletes have always been a part of the show. NFL players like Jerry Rice (who finished as a runner-up in Season 2), Emmitt Smith (Season 3 champion) and Taylor has competed.

Evander Holyfield, Floyd Mayweather Jr, Apolo Anton Ohno, Hélio Castroneves, Monica Seles, Kristi Yamaguchi and Clyde Drexler have also been on the show.

Yesterday we posted about Evander Holyfield's refusal/inability to pay $6,000 in child support for one of his 11 kids. In the previous post, we had the number pegged to nine kids but today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution ups the total by a pair. Consider the number flexible until further notice.

Anyway, the former heavyweight champ spoke to the paper and explained that, despite that evidence to the contrary, everything is just hunky-dory with his finances.

"I'm not broke. I'm just not liquid. I do feel kind of sad because things have always been positive and now everybody wants to jump on me like I'm the worst person in the world and I went out and blew all my money."

Gee, champ, I wonder what it is about people that makes them think you should care for the children you bring into the world. For the record, Holyfield denies that he has been behind on child support. If the allegations about not paying child support are true, though, Holyfield's priorities are seriously out of whack.

Holyfield's massive estate is no longer listed as being up for auction, although there are two new mortgages on the property totaling $5 million. Holyfield's former accountant said that any talk of selling the house to gain solvency is a no-win proposition. He's got a $20 million asset he refuses to part with, even though he needs cash to settle other obligations, that alone should give medical commissions all the reason they need to bar him from fighting again.

Evander Holyfield has earned hundreds of millions of dollars during his boxing career but news out of Georgia indicates he hasn't done a very good job of managing it. The mother of one of his nine children, says that Holyfield hasn't paid her child support for their 10-year old son.

The amount of the support for May and June, $6,000, seems a piddling sum but the boxer's attorneys told Toi Irvin that she shouldn't ever expect to see it come her way.

"It wasn't so much that he didn't pay," said Irvin's attorney, Randy Kessler. "She was told they didn't know if she would be paid at all."

That's not the only inkling that Holyfield is in some serious financial trouble. His mansion in Fayette County is under foreclosure and is set to be auctioned off by the bank on July 1. He's also being sued by a Utah company for failure to repay a loan of $550,000 which was supposedly going to be used for landscaping at the aforementioned estate. Neither Holyfield nor his attorneys had a comment.

Holyfield's last fight was a loss to Sultan Ibragimov in October 2007 but he has said he'd like to keep fighting in his quest to recapture the heavyweight title. It would seem, however, that his bigger need is paying off his creditors although it's hard to see too many big money fights in his future.

As Floyd Mayweather, the world's top boxer, prepares to take on The Big Show at WrestleMania, there are increasing questions about whether it's worth the risk of injury -- after all, just because professional wrestling is scripted doesn't mean a wrestler can't get hurt. In this video (via DC Scrap), Evander Holyfield and Roy Jones ponder the possibilities:

Holyfield said, "I wouldn't take that risk," although the way Holyfield was talking, I got the sense that he was saying he wouldn't take the risk of an actual fight with Big Show, not a scripted pro wrestling match.

For the record, Mayweather weighed in at 159 pounds and Big Show, who bills himself as "the largest athlete in the world," weighed in at 441. Although WWE has been known to bill its wrestlers as being larger than they actually are, I can believe that Big Show really does weigh 441.