Moorer is less in Las Vegas
Holyfield gets TKO in 8th; unification bout next?
Posted: Sun November 9, 1997 at 2:33 AM ET
LAS VEGAS (CNN/SI) -- Evander Holyfield survived his heavyweight title bout against Michael Moorer Saturday night with both ears intact and two championship belts firmly in his possession.
Holyfield, in the first defense of his WBA title since Mike Tyson bit his ears in that infamous title rematch in June, knocked down Moorer five times -- twice in both the seventh and eighth rounds -- before the fight was stopped before the ninth.
The win at the Thomas & Mack Center all but guarantees the heavyweight unification fight that fans and boxing pundits so desperately desire. Holyfield, who was a 12-5 favorite to beat Moorer for the IBF title, is now on track for a possible unification fight with WBC champion Lennox Lewis in the spring.
"We need to have just one champion in the heavyweight division," Holyfield said before Saturday's fight. "I want to be that champion before I retire."
Holyfield, 35, avenged a loss to the man who beat him in April 1994 for the WBA and IBF crowns. In that fight, Holyfield suffered a shoulder injury that limited his blocking ability and severly restricted his punching range.
"He came to win," Holyfield said of the challenger. "When you have a guy who
comes to win, you always have a good fight."
Moorer, who appeared to be the sharper puncher early on, said he was ready to press on.
"I'm disappointed that the doctor stopped the fight," Moorer
said. "I was ready to fight. I was going to keep on getting up."
Holyfield went over to Moorer after the fight ended and asked
him if he was all right.
"The uppercut was working," said Holyfield, who suffered a small cut above his right eye after an inadvertent head butt. "Mike was sticking the jab and I wanted to stay with my game plan. I couldn't get frustrated."
After four relatively benign opening rounds, Holyfield turned up the heat on the challenger in the fifth. Holyfield, who at times appeared sluggish and not his usual rock-strong self, came alive near the end of the fifth and floored Moorer with a solid right to the head.
Smelling a victory, Holyfield attacked Moorer mercilessly in the seventh, pummeling the challenger with repeated blows to the head and twice knocking him to the canvas. But Moorer, who twice appeared to be out on his feet, battled on.
Moorer went down for a fourth time in the eighth, after another blow to the head with roughly a minute left in the round. Seconds later, another Holyfield combination sent Moorer down, but, amazingly, he got up again.
Moorer (39-2) tried desperately to fight back and at one point
motioned for Holyfield to bring it on. Then Holyfield (35-3) landed
two right uppercuts in a six-punch series that put Moorer down for
the final time. He got up and the bell sounded to end the round but
the fight was as good as over.
It was in contrast to the first fight between the two in April
1994 when both fighters appeared content to trade from the outside
and there was only one knockdown.
Lewis was ringside for the fight and called Holyfield's performance "mediocre."
"They're not ready for me yet, none of them," Lewis said.
Said Holyfield of a potential match against the big Brit, "If Don King can work something out with Lennox Lewis, I'm ready to put it on the line."
The fight drew a crowd of only about 10,000 at UNLV's campus
arena, far less than the 16,000 who packed the MGM Grand Garden
arena for Holyfield's two fights with Tyson.
Holyfield earned $20 million for the fight, upping his earnings
to $67 million in his last three fights and some $170 million for
his career.
In the undercard matches, Fabrice Tiozzo of France became a two-time
champion when he upset Nate Miller to win the WBA
cruiserweight title.
Tiozzo, a former light heavyweight champion, simply outworked
Miller and was the aggressor in scoring a 12-round decision to win
his second title.
Another cruiserweight, Imamu Mayfield of New Jersey, won the IBF
version of the title by taking a decision over Uriah Grant in
another 12-round fight.
Tiozzo won by two points on two ringside scorecards and three on
a third in a fight that was widely ignored by the crowd waiting for
the delayed heavyweight title fight. Both fighters weighed the
class limit of 190 pounds.
About the only thing that got the crowd's attention in the fight
was an exchange in the 12th round and when Miller went down in a
heap in the 11th round after slipping while throwing a right hand.
Miller, of Philadelphia, had won his last seven fights by
knockouts but never came close to hurting Tiozzo in a fight that
had no knockdowns.
Mayfield, 188 pounds, used his longer reach and superior boxing skills
to frustrate Grant early, then knocked him down with a left hook
midway through the fifth round. Grant got back up and took a
beating the rest of the round, but was able to survive the round.
Grant was defending for the first time the title he won June 21
from Adolpho Washington in what was his third try for a title in a
13-year pro career.
But Grant was frustrated throughout the fight by the movement of
Mayfield, who kept Grant from fighting inside and, when they did,
was the stronger puncher.
"It was no surprise," Mayfield said of his win. "It was
manifest destiny."
Mayfield, who had won his seven previous fights by knockout,
improved to 17-1. Mayfield, of Freehold, New Jersey, was paid $20,000.
Grant, 190, of Jamaica, fell to 26-13. He earned $80,000.
In a featherweight title fight, Wilfredo Vazquez of Puerto Rico
retained his WBA title with a unanimous decision over Genaro Rios
of Nicaragua.
Vazquez, a three-time champion, was the better fighter on the
inside in a fight that did little to attract the attention of the
crowd waiting to see the Holyfield-Moorer fight.
Vazquez, who weighed the class limit of 126 pounds, defended his
WBA title for the fourth time and improved to 50-7-3. Rios, the
WBA's No. 8 contender, fell to 16-4. He also weighed 126 pounds.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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