Veteran Heavyweight Boxers on the Comeback Trail
The Retired Fighters Returning to the Ring
Sep 11, 2009
Professional golfers and tennis players have well-established seniors tours for when they can no longer 'cut it' with the young guns, and racing drivers can move from Formula One and Indycar into less competitive series in a bid to prolong their careers. Boxing, however, that most physically demanding of sports, affords its' competitors no such opportunity. Once a fighter passes his peak years and begins to decline physically he must face the certain fact that one day he will be cruelly exposed by a young pretender to his throne.
Why Do Old Boxers Continue Fighting?
Boxing is an adrenaline-fuelled sport and fighters often talk of missing the 'buzz' of combat when they finally hang-up their gloves, so much to that some are tempted into ill-advised comebacks following a long period of inactivity; their peak years well behind them. Of course, these fighters are not solely motivated by the absence of competition, sadly they also return for financial reasons and there are a plethora of veteran heavyweights angling for one final shot at glory.
Evander Holyfield, Hasim Rahman, Oliver McCall, James Toney and Ray Mercer are among a host of former champions on the wrong side of forty, hoping to employ their rapidly diminishing skills to exploit a chronically weak division and capture a portion of the fractured, tarnished heavyweight crown; and back in 1994 George Foreman showed them that it could be done.
The George Foreman Comeback Story
It is a well-worn adage that the last thing a boxer loses is his punch, and 'Big' George was well behind on the judges' cards - on his way to the third failed world title challenge of his six year long comeback - when the right-handed punch that would go on to sell millions of Lean, Mean Grilling Machines detonated on Michael Moorer's chin. Foreman was forty-five years of age and set a new record as the oldest heavyweight champion ever which, despite the best efforts of Evander Holyfield, still stands to this day.
Taken on face value George Foreman's comeback appears to have been a success and a template for others to follow, however the reality is altogether different. Foreman had beaten a string of journeyman and fringe fighters, mostly avoiding 'live' contenders and slowly working his way into a title challenging position. He came up short against both Evander Holyfield and Tommy Morrison before making it third time lucky against Moorer. Foreman fought just four more times, gradually being stripped of his titles for refusing to face mandatory challengers, and finished his career with a defeat by the unremarkable Shannon Briggs. In spite of that his place in history was already assured, having regained the heavyweight title he had surrendered to Muhammed Ali an astonishing twenty years earlier.
Evander Holyfield's Comeback Continues Despite Latest Defeats
The odds are surely stacked against any of the current crop of old hopefuls emulating Foreman, for if it is true that the last thing a boxer loses is his punch - hence why fighters from the heavier weights are able to campaign longer - then it is also true that the first thing he loses is his speed. This being the case it certainly does not bode well for smaller, speed/reflex fighters such as Evander Holyfield and James Toney.
Holyfield's recent record is dismal. 'The Real Deal' has arguably not won a meaningful fight since defeating Hasim Rahman in 2002 and holds a 4-5 record since then, his two most recent defeats being world title challenges against Sultan Ibragimov (WBO) and Nikolai Valuev (WBA). According to most observers Holyfield actually won the latter contest, using his speed and mobility advantage (at 46 years old!) to pick off the lumbering Russian giant at will. Nevertheless, Holyfield, never short on self-belief, still believes a fifth world heavyweight title to be his destiny, and is pressing for one final shot at glory.
James Toney's Stuttering Heavyweight Career
James Toney's stop-start heavyweight career continues on September 12th against journeyman Matthew Greer. A plodding and overweight Toney was unimpressive against Fres Oquendo last time out and it is now make-or-break time for 'Lights Out', who must surely embark on a series of wins against stellar opposition if he is to mount yet another challenge for a portion of the title. Whilst it appears unlikely that the former middleweight could ever pose a serious threat to boxers with the size and range of the Klitschko brothers he could - if he can somehow get himself back into respectable shape - reasonably expect to beat most of the rest of the division.
The Other Aging Heavyweights Still Fighting
Of the rest of the veteran hopefuls still campaigning, Frans Botha (age 40, and the current WBF champion) plus the only two men to defeat Lennox Lewis - Hasim Rahman (42) and Oliver McCall (44) - can at least hope that their names will bring them one last big pay-day should they continue their winning ways, even if a legitimate title will almost certainly elude them.
Other former champions, such as Ray Mercer (48), Bruce Seldon (42) and Riddick Bowe (41) are either still fighting on with little success or threatening to return to the ring, and given that they have declined to such an extent that any top 15 ranked fighter could surely dispatch them with ease, their motives can only be purely financial. In these cases it is difficult to understand how a former champion continues to fight on - not in the hope of fresh glory, but simply to pad his bank account - when he is surely faced with the prospect of ever-diminishing returns as he drops further down the boxing ladder; becoming simply a name opponent to provide a 'W' for an up and coming prospect, his record further tarnished by every humiliating defeat.
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