FanHouse Nikolai Valuev

Challenger David Haye did a lot of trash talking before Saturday night's clash with WBA champion Nikolai Valuev. In the end, the smaller man backed up his words.

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.

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.