Evander Holyfield posted a short workout clip of him working with former heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko as he prepares for his return to the ring for charity boxing events. Holyfield is preparing to return to the ring for exhibition matches for charity, along with Mike Tyson, Shannon Briggs, and James Toney.
Holyfield beat Mike Tyson twice during his career, but that was 25 years ago, and it’s too long ago for it to have any barring about what will happen when they face each other now.
These are expected to be three-round exhibition matches with 20-ounce gloves. The winners of these fights might be the guys that have enough stamina to fight hard for three minutes of each round. Although Tyson looks powerful and fast, his stamina is a big question mark. If Tyson can’t knockout Holyfield in the opening 30 seconds, he’ll probably gas out and wind up getting knocked out.
Briggs, 48, posted on social media earlier on Friday, bragging about how he’s going to win all of his exhibition matches. Briggs looks in excellent shape as well, and he might have more left in the tank than all of the former heavyweight champions looking to come back.
Unlike Tyson, Holyfield ended his professional career on a high note in defeating Brian Nielsen by a 10 round knockout in May 2011. However, Holyfield had very little left of his once impressive boxing skills by that point in his career. He’d been beaten by Nikolay Valuev, Sultan Ibragimov, Larry Donald, and James Toney in the final years of his career.
The only guy that we don’t know about is Wladimir. If he came back to compete in the exhibition matches, he might have too much for any of these fighters because he’s still reasonably young in his early 40s.
The 57-year-old former two-division world champion Holyfield (44-10-2, 29 KOs) already looks like he’s in much-improved condition from the first workout clip his posted a couple of weeks ago. He looks trim and youthful for a person nearing 60.
We didn’t get a chance to see whether Holyfield’s hand speed has improved. In the clip that Holyfield posted on social media and quickly deleted, he appeared glacially slow. When you compare Holyfield’s hand speed to that of the 53-year-old Mike Tyson, he was entirely out of his ballpark. Former heavyweight champion Tyson looks a lot faster and more explosive with his punches.
