After only winning two of his last nine fights, including a three fight losing streakat the end, four-time heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield was suspended indefinitely by the New York State Athletic Commission amid health concerns following a poor performance against Larry Donald in which the then 42-year-old Holyfield was nearly swept by Donald on all three judge's scorecards. Following the suspension, Holyfield was out of boxing for 21 months before announcing his return in June 2006 to take on Jeremy Bates in August of that year. Holyfield would win the first four fights of his comeback and eventually landed a world title shot against WBO heavyweight championSultan Ibragimov on October 13, 2007, but lost by a lopsided unanimous decision. Holyfield would take a year-long layoff, but eventually accepted an offer from WBA heavyweight Nikolai Valuev to challenge him for the title on December 20, 2008. Valuev was in his second reign as WBA heavyweight champion, having defeated John Ruiz to claim the vacant title in his previous fight. As in virtually every fight he had been in, the 7 foot, 310-pound Valuev had a distinct size advantage as he was ten inches taller and nearly 100 pounds heavier than Holyfield. Holyfield accepted a pay day of around $700,000, his lowest purse for a heavyweight title fight and a far cry from the record $35 million he had earned for his second fight against Mike Tyson. This would mark the first time Holyfield had contested the WBA belt since his third fight with John Ruiz in 2001.
The Fight
Though the fight was largely uneventful and featured no knockdowns, Holyfield narrowly missed making history by winning his fifth world title and becoming the oldest heavyweight champion in boxing history and instead lost to Valuev by a closely contested, and disputed, majority decision. Holyfield kept his distance from Valuev for most of the fight but appeared to clearly outpunch Valuev, who did not sustain much offense during the fight. Nevertheless, when the fight went to the official scorecards, one judge had Valuev winning by a score of 115–114 and the second had a score of 116–112, while the third had the fight even at 114–114. The decision was controversial, with veteran announcer Nick Charles stating "That is the worst display of officiating I have ever seen." ESPN's Dan Rafael wrote "you can make more of a legitimate argument that Holyfield won all 12 rounds than you can make one that Valuev claimed at least seven to take the fight."
Aftermath
Valuev would go on to face former unified cruiserweight champion David Haye, losing via a majority decision and retiring three days later. Holyfield would continue on for three more fights before finally retiring just before he turned 50, therefore this fight marked the final world title bout in his long career, 22 years, 5 months, 9 days after his first against Dwight Muhammad Qawi for the WBA cruiserweight title in July 1986.
