You Can Watch 58-Year-Old Evander Holyfield Fight This Saturday For The Very Low Price Of Fifty Dollars In Boxing's Latest Spectacle
I was looking at boxing odds a few months back and came across the name of a guy I watched fight when I was in college many, many moons ago: Evander Holyfield.
The 58-year-old was scheduled to fight Kevin McBride in Florida on the undercard of whatever fiasco followed it. McBride is an Irishman who made his home in Boston and if his name sounds familiar, it's because he's in rare company with Holyfield as they are two of the five people in the world who have beat Mike Tyson in a pro boxing match. If memory serves correct (about a 75% chance), McBride was a 14/1 underdog in what would be Iron Mike's final pro fight.
I don't even remember if there were actually odds posted yet because I was too busy Googling Holyfield's age once I saw his name. But the fight never happened and instead the former heavyweight champ just kicked the cash can further down the road until something else worked out. 44-year-old former MMA star Vitor Belfort turned out to be that something else. Belfort was supposed to fight Oscar De La Hoya until the Golden Boy was dealt a KO(vid). So the guy who had a piece of his ear bitten off by Tyson 24 years ago will fill in for him.
That means you can spend $49.99 of your hard-earned United States dollars for the privelege of watching a boxer whose heyday was two decades ago and needs money vs. a guy who should be working on his Dad Bod but can't say 'no' to an easy payday. The event will be held in Hollywood, FL which is appropriate considering all the playing make believe that will go on. It's just the latest spectacle in a sport struggling to rediscover the cachet it once had, like some punch-drunk Ponce de León.
Holyfield made hundreds of millions of dollars in the ring. He was the heavyweight champion of the world back when that still meant something. It's insane, sad, and ridiculous that he has to reduce himself to an eight round show that's trying to cash in on the tired 'boxing vs. MMA' beef. But divorce, a soccer team worth of kids, and awful money management will do that. Even when you're worth a quarter bill apparently.
"You blew how much?"
What's even more insane, sad, and ridiculous is people will actually spend $50 on this tripe.
Holyfield isn't the only one returning to the ring area as Jim Lampley will work the mic for his first TV gig in almost three years. He'll join Snoop on the broadcast…and now that I typed that out, I'm seriously considering spending $50 just to see and hear the interactions between Dogg and the 72-year-old one-time stalwart of HBO Boxing. (Wait a minute---no fucking way. I'll just catch the clips on Twitter 15 seconds later.)
But wait, there's more…
(Source)--The pay-per-view broadcast will begin at 7 p.m. ET and include three boxing matches alongside the Holyfield-Belfort main – including another pair of ex-MMA stars in Anderson Silva and Tito Ortiz, former cruiserweight/heavyweight title claimant David Haye against fellow Brit Joe Fournier and junior lightweights Andy Vences and Jono Carroll.
There's only one PPV outfit in the game worth the dough these days. Right, Blockhead?
