A slightly later than usual April column mainly as a result of our outstanding fight in Las Vegas Nevada.
Taking away the hype of their ages, Evander Holyfield and Francois Botha produced an exciting action packed and thrilling fight which could have gone either way.
For the first six rounds Botha, the World Boxing Federation heavyweight king threw vicious right hands to the head and body of Holyfield – many of which would have stopped lesser opponents. But Holyfied is anything but a lesser opponent.
Taking all that Botha could throw he caught Botha with a right hook to the head which floored the big South African. Gamely Botha got to his feet, but with Holyfield swarming and throwing dozens of unanswered punches, referee Russel Mora correctly stopped the contest. Interestingly Botha was ahead on two of the scorecards at the time of the stoppage.
While it is not the end of the road for Botha, and there is talk of a WBFed international heavyweight title fight in Vegas later in the year, Botha will need to prepare better and train harder. Botha remains a quality heavyweight and a fit and focused Botha will take a lot of stopping.
But clearly the man of the moment is Evander Holyfield. A warrior, a fighter and in general a class act. All those in boxing know that Holyfield’s points loss to Valuev last year was a travesty of justice, and here, Holyfield got the opportunity to prove all his critics wrong. This he did in complete style. We are indeed proud to have this ‘hero’ as our world champion and look forward to him defending later in the year.
Our convention takes place at the end of the month and I hope that the Icelandic volcano has had enough and will allow all flights back into the air. Albania is hosting our first Convention, and I thank our Honory President Mr Ylli Ndroqi for his fantastic efforts in putting our convention together. He is certainly a major player in our organisation. We also look forward to our Albanian world middleweight champion, Kreshnik Qato, defending his world title on home soil for the first time.
Europe has picked up nicely with Poland and France being active recently. Our champions list continues to grow and our vacant titles are becoming fewer and fewer. I am also extremely excited with our first world championship in Ghana in May and certainly intend to be present at that historic fight.
A very jet lagged president wishing you all well.
Until next time, keep boxing.
Howard Goldberg
PRESIDENT: World Boxing Federation
