Tomato can diet won't prepare Holyfield for title shot

	At 44, Evander Holyfield hopes to unify the heavyweight titles and retire in 2008. AP
	RELATED • Holyfield stops Maddalone with bloody TKO • SI: Holyfield allegedly received steroids, HGH
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There are only so many stiffs Evander Holyfield can beat up on before someone gives him a title shot.

First, let's give Holyfield credit. Regardless of the level of competition put in front of him, Holyfield has been masterful, even vicious, in his latest comeback. In a telephone interview with SI.com on Wednesday, Holyfield says he still believes he has the power to knockout the premier heavyweights in the division, a list that includes IBF champion Wladimir Klitschko.

Against Vinny Maddalone on Saturday night, Holyfield used an array of punches and utilized a devastating left hook that he says he couldn't throw three years ago due to a shoulder injury. Sure, Maddalone was overmatched (it's never good when the ringside commentators point out early in the fight that Maddalone "is a bleeder"), but Holyfield systematically destroyed a bigger man. What else was he supposed to do?

That said, if "The Real Deal" thinks he can win even one belt in a diluted division, well, he's not being real with himself. Beating up on Maddalone and Jeremy Bates and going the distance with Fres Oquendo (who before fighting Holyfield went the distance with Javier Mora, the same Mora who was pulverized in 46 seconds by Sultan Ibragimov) is one thing, but taking on an accomplished heavyweight like Klitschko or Samuel Peter is entirely different. None of Holyfield's aforementioned opponents possess the punching power of Peter or the technical skills of Klitschko. Boxing, as Holyfield well knows, is a different animal when the man in front of you has a pulse.

The man Holyfield should have been fighting Saturday night was Calvin Brock, who destroyed journeyman Ralph West with a first-round knockout. Brock, a former Olympian, isn't in the same class as Klitschko or Peter but he did hang in for seven rounds with Klitschko and is a far better fighter than anyone Holyfield has fought in the last two years. A convincing victory over a fighter like Brock would go a long way toward showing the respective federations that he deserves a title shot. That is, of course, assuming he is allowed to step into the ring in the first place.

New York continues to ban Holyfield from fighting within its borders, and while his suspension was downgraded (it previously included all 50 states), it is unlikely Holyfield would receive a license in Nevada, which has similar medical standards. And I don't foresee an elite heavyweight fighting for a title in Corpus Christi. There is also the questions about Holyfield's alleged use of human growth hormone (HGH). Holyfield's statements defending himself against the claims that he used HGH are ludicrous. He claims he took "some drug" to combat Hepatitis A he says he got from eating "bad shrimp" and he tells SI.com that he has "no idea" how a cell phone number on a Post-it note attached to a file for "Evan Fields" at the recently raided Applied Pharmacy Services turned out to be his. He has been accused by Margaret Goodman, the chairman of the Nevada Athletic Commission's medical advisory board, of using HGH all the way back in 1994, a charge the 44-year old Holyfield angrily denies before turning the blame for his '94 heart attack on Nevada doctors for "overmedicating" him.

Aging. Wounded. Questions about drug use. Not exactly the qualities you want in a heavyweight contender.

Holyfield should bow out. He has had an illustrious career that has spanned three decades. He has been a champion's champion, challenging Mike Tyson back when most were afraid to be in the same room with him. He will go down in history as one of the all-time greats. If he can just find it in him to walk away. That, however, doesn't seem likely. "It doesn't take anything to walk away," says Holyfield. "It doesn't take anything to quit. What takes heart is to stay in there and fight."