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June 1998
Each month we bring you a selection of articles from the current and past issues of BOXING MONTHLY. To buy the magazine, see our subscription or back issues pages, or use our world distribution map to find a news-stand copy. Why not use our Interactive Forum to express your own boxing comments and opinions!
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HE WHO LAUGHS LAST
Based on his disqualification loss to Lennox Lewis, Henry Akinwande's hopes of beating Evander Holyfield are Bob and no, say many. But styles make fights and if Akinwande's nerve holds, an upset might be on. Preview by GRAHAM HOUSTON |
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AKINWANDE: froze against the massive Lewis, but Holyfield is not as
physically imposing
- Get Big Pic
Trying to get a clear picture of Evander Holyfield's heavyweight title fight
with Henry Akinwande at Madison Garden on 6 June is a little like trying to
play amateur psychologist.
This fight might not be so much a matter of skills and punching power as it
will be of mental attitudes.
On the one hand, we wonder if Holyfield, after having shocked the world
against Mike Tyson and then avenged a defeat against Michael Moorer, might
come into the ring overconfident and undermotivated. After all, he is a 6-1
on favourite with the Las Vegas oddsmakers.
And then we have the challenger, Akinwande. Last July he clutched and was
disqualified in five rounds against Lennox Lewis. He was much criticised
for his lack of heart. Will he once again be like the frightened soldier
who thinks only of survival when he gets his first whiff of gunpowder? Or
will he brace himself mentally for the fight of his life, determined not to
allow himself again to be disgraced?
These are not the only imponderables. Holyfield is 35 and has had many tough,
gruelling fights in 131/2 -year career. Despite his superbly muscled
physique and his unshakeable self-belief there could come a time when, in
just one fight, everything falls apart when he gets hit and, suddenly, is
unable to come back.
And the referee will play a very big role indeed. It is a natural tendency of
Akinwande to clinch, as he showed as far back as 1986 when he was
disqualified in the Amateur Boxing Association heavyweight final in London.
If the referee starts warning Akinwande right from the start, if he takes a
point away early in the contest, then the London-born boxer (of Nigerian
parentage) could collapse mentally, just as he did against Lewis.
Then we have the matter of sentiment. Holyfield is riding a tidal wave of
popularity after the way he twice handled the bullying aggression of Tyson.
The Garden crowd will give Holyfield their thunderous suppport in the arena
where he launched his pro career in November 1984. Akinwande can expect to
be booed, because the fans will be unforgiving of his showing against Lewis.
If the fight goes 12 rounds and is at all close, Akinwande is not likely to
find favour on the scoresheets because judges are only human. That is not to
say that the judges will consciously favour Holyfield, but if rounds are
close enough for argument, the people's favourite seems the more likely of
the two men to get the benefit of the doubt: every punch landed by Holyfield
will meet with a roar, and that can have an effect when a round is scored.
Talk to people in the fight game (and a round-up of opinions is published on
other pages) and you get mixed reactions. Some think Holyfield will simply
outgame and overwhelm Akinwande, others see a potentially difficult fight
but with Holyfield finding a way to win, while others make this a highly
winnable fight for Akinwande.
And going purely by the physical disparity between the two men, this seems
the sort of fight that will not be easy for Holyfield, who will be giving
away six inches in height and approximately 18lbs in weight to the 6ft 7ins,
roughly 235lbs (16st 11lbs) Akinwande.
When Holyfield comes across the ring at Akinwande he might be wondering
whether to fight him or climb him. But Holyfield has a way of cutting a man
down to size. Giving away height and weight is nothing new. He defeated much
bigger men in Buster Douglas - although perhaps we should throw out that one
in view of his opponent's less-than-robust resistance - and the ageing
George Foreman and Larry Holmes, and had the three wars with Riddick Bowe,
winning only one but almost knocking out Big Daddy in the rubber match.
Still, he has never met anyone who will tower over him the way that
Akinwande will.
Psychologically it could be damaging for Akinwande to have his co-trainers,
Don Turner and Tommy Brooks, working with Holyfield, their far more affluent
client. But Akinwande's French manager, Jean-Christophe Courreges, was
successful in obtaining the services of Emanuel Steward to work with
Akinwande in the gym.
At the time this preview was being written, Steward's involvement had not
been made public. Steward had not returned phone calls, unusual for one of
the classier members of the game's high-profile set. The feeling here is
that Steward had not been able to discuss the matter at length with Lennox
Lewis, with whom he has a managerial interest as well as the trainer's role,
and did not wish to be quoted.
People in boxing who heard that Steward was to work with Akinwande expressed
surprise, seeing as Lewis is hoping to get a crack at Holyfield. But it has
been Steward's view for some time now that Holyfield has no intention of
fighting Lewis, and the way negotiations fell apart between the two sides
last December would seem to bear out this opinion.
Steward could have a highly personal involvement in the Akinwande-Holyfield
match due to a disagreement with Holyfield in which the trainer feels he was
not treated well. Steward, in 1993, agreed to train Holyfield at a time when
everyone thought the "Real Deal" was damaged goods, coached him to the upset
win over Bowe in their rematch, then was "let go" in a disagreement over
money. For Steward, although not known to be a man to harbour animosity,
there could be a bit of payback involved.
But more than this, one suspects, Steward wants the challenge. He steered
Holyfield to victory over Bowe, he masterminded Oliver McCall's stunning
second-round win over Lewis before becoming Lewis's trainer, so what better
achievement than to upset the odds for the third time in a heavyweight
hat-trick that would not only cement his position as one of the greatest
trainer-strategists in history but would also allow him to lay claim to
being the best there ever was?
Don Turner and Tommy Brooks claim to know Akinwande's every move, but Steward
knows Holyfield, so this evens things out.
I did speak to Steward before he had committed himself to working with
Akinwande, and he told me then that the important thing for whoever trained
the challenger was to build the fighter's confidence to the point where he
truly believed in himself (Steward's quotes appear in our fight-trade survey
on the fight).
Also, Steward said that he was disgusted at the comments that Don Turner had
apparently been making about Akinwande, to the effect that the big fellow
had very little heart. Steward felt the remarks were not only unkind but
unprofessional. (Several phone messages left for Turner at his residence
and at Holyfield's training camp were unreturned.)
In the absence of quotes from Steward, Jean-Christophe Courreges reported:
"Emanuel told me that everything is going very well in [training] camp. He
said he is very pleased with Henry. He has got back to the basics with him,
and Henry is happy with this. Emanuel said the fight will not go five
rounds."
But in Holyfield's camp, the feeling is that it is one thing for Steward to
tell Akinwande what to do and another thing entirely for the fighter to go
out and follow the instructions.
Perhaps it all comes down to Akinwande's mindset on the night, the "You can
if you think you can" type of thing.
Akinwande has been in big fights before, in hostile situations -the two
European title bouts with Axel Schulz in Germany, for instance - and always
seemed to be a cool, well-ordered boxer. It appears he was intimidated by
Lewis. Against Holyfield, though, he meets a smaller, older man. He is used
to being around Holyfield from the days when they both trained in Houston,
Texas, under the Don Turner/Tommy Brooks team, although they trained at
different times and never sparred together.
So Akinwande might not necessarily be overawed by Holyfield or the occasion.
It all depends whether one is prepared to accept that his non-effort against
Lewis was an aberration or whether that fight exposed a deep-seated frailty
of temperament.
Although Akinwande is saying all the right things - that he will be in the
best shape of his life, that he knows he will win, and so on - he expresses
himself in such a low-key, unemotional way that it is difficult to gauge the
depth of his feeling. Even his manager says that Akinwande's big problem is
that he does not always believe in himself. But when he comes face to face
with Holyfield in the ring and finds himself looking down at his opponent,
one would think that the mere fact of his physical superiority will instill
a certain confidence.
If we forget for a moment the affair with Lewis, the fact is that the
32-year-old Akinwande deserves respect as a competent if unexciting boxer
whose height and reach, the good left jab and jarring right hand from the
outside, could be expected to give any opponent a difficult fight.
Akinwande is an experienced professional who has won 33 of his 35 fights,
losing to Lewis and being held to a draw by Schulz in a decision deemed to
have flattered the German. But he outpointed Schulz in their rematch. He has
stopped 19 opponents, most notably Jeremy Williams, whom he crushed with big
rights in the third round at Indio, California two years ago to become World
Boxing Organisation champion, a title he subsequently vacated.
It is true that Akinwande has had his share of dreary fights, including a
comfortable but uninspired victory over Scott Welch at Nashville in January
1997, but he kept winning. The image of him hanging on against Lewis
lingers, but overlooked by many is the fact that Akinwande landed a right
that had the World Boxing Council champion touching down briefly: referee
Mills Lane admitted afterwards that he made a mistake in not scoring it a
knockdown.
Trying to get an explanation from Akinwande about the lamentable display at
Lake Tahoe is not easy, but it does seem that something of a defeatist
attitude set in when he thought he had legitimately dropped Lewis, only for
the referee to wave it off as a slip, and then came the constant cautions
for holding. But if he can catch Holyfield the way he caught Lewis, the way
he nailed Jeremy Williams, he might be able to hurt him enough to turn the
course of the fight favourably.
But Akinwande knows that he must be strong mentally as well as physically.
The World Boxing Association and International Boxing Federation champion
will be coming at him, looking to hurt him as quickly as possible. Even if
Akinwande survives the expected early onslaught and gets his jab to work,
finds a home for the right, we can be sure that Holyfield will constantly
and unceasingly seek a way to reach him, to hammer him until the bigger man
caves in mentally and physically.
Holyfield simply does not believe he can lose. This spiritual man has an
inner strength unmatched in boxing, an absolute refusal to admit defeat
that, apart from his skills and his hitting power, makes him such a
formidable warrior.
There have been times when the boxing world has feared for his health. When
it seemed he had given his all and was a spent fighter. The writers and many
of those within the trade itself have at least four times in his career
written off Holyfield as a "shot" fighter. After his lacklustre points win
over Alex Stewart at Atlantic City five years ago, for instance, Rock
Newman, Riddick Bowe's manager, said: "I would encourage Evander Holyfield
to retire."
But Holyfield beat Bowe in their rematch, only to lose to Michael Moorer and
announce his retirement after what turned out to be a faulty "heart defect"
diagnosis.
Back again, he was knocked out in the eighth round by Bowe in their rubber
match when he seemed to become exhausted after the first couple of rounds,
although flooring Bowe and almost winning in a truly spectacular sixth-round
resurgence.
Once more, it looked like the finish.
An unimpressive five-rounds win over blown-up cruiserweight Bobby Czyz at the
Garden in May 1996 seemed to provide evidence of deterioration. Although
Holyfield dominated the smaller man he could not knock Czyz off his feet and
seemed easy to hit himself. But he never lost faith - in himself or the
Higher Power - and fought a magnificent, smart, brave and
do-or-die-determined fight to stop the seemingly unconquerable Mike Tyson
in November 1996.
Since then we have had the ear-biting ugliness of the Tyson rematch and a
five-knockdown, eight-round battering of old rival Michael Moorer last
November.
Astonishingly, after 38 fights (35 wins, 25 by KO), Holyfield seems as good
as he ever was, maybe even better than ever. It is as if he is a man
renewed.
But the cruel reality of boxing is that age and hard fights have a tendency
to catch up. Even those who feel that Holyfield will blow Akinwande out of
the fight add the proviso that it all depends on which Holyfield shows up:
the one who has at times looked worn and vulnerable or the powerful
gladiator of his last three appearances.
The logic of the recent fights of the two big men is that Holyfield will
walk right through Akinwande. Many have asked why the fight was even made.
But Akinwande earned the chance when he easily outpointed the former cruiser
champ Orlin Norris at Pompano Beach, Florida, last December, to become the
World Boxing Association's mandatory challenger.
I was there that night, and although Akinwande boxed efficiently he was not
under the pressure that he will be against Holyfield. But it was important
for Akinwande to get back in the ring and win a significant fight after the
Lewis fiasco. And talking to him afterwards, and over the phone since, one
got the impression that, in his own, quiet way, he deeply wishes to redeem
himself.
Now he gets the chance. But will he take it? Despite the judgement of the
oddsmakers, it seems to me that Akinwande might be poised to pull off a huge
upset. His jab can give Holyfield problems all night, and the right hand
might be strong enough to hurt the champion and possibly even get him into
trouble.
Akinwande seems able to take a good punch (he never looked like going down
against Lewis) and he has been 12 rounds five times without running out of
stamina. So it appears conceivable that he will be able to stand up to
Holyfield's punches and keep functioning for 12 rounds.
But if Akinwande gets in trouble with the referee early in the proceedings
for what is considered excessive holding it could trigger uncertainty and
allow Holyfield simply to bully him out of the fight.
All things considered, though, this appears to me to be a fight that
Akinwande can win, and my feeling is that he will do just that. |
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