By Miguel Rivera

Former undisputed cruiserweight and heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield is happy to see the heavyweight division bouncing back and creating noise in the last twelve months.

Holyfield watched the decline of the heavyweight division after fighters like himself, Lennox Lewis, David Tua, Mike Tyson, Chris Byrd, Riddick Bowe and several others walked away.

The Klitschko brothers, Wladimir and Vitali, have dominated the landscape for most of the last ten years. But now a fresh crop of fighters are taking over the division. Deontay Wilder holds the WBC title, Fury beat Wladimir last month to capture the WBA/IBF/WBO/IBO titles, and next month Charles Martin and Czar Glazkov will battle for the vacant IBF title that Fury lost. 

"I think you have more younger fighters that were good amateur fighters coming in. I think boxing is changing. With heavyweight, there was never a continuous string of great heavyweights. After [Muhammad] Ali, it took a while before [Mike] Tyson came along. I think after all the heavyweights of the 90s left, it started going downhill, but now it’s good that it’s starting to recover. I think it will recover because there are lot of young fighters who are coming up," Holyfield told Fox Deportes.

Holyfield recently watched Cuban heavyweight Luis Ortiz pick up an impressive knockout win over Bryant Jennings on December 19th. He says Ortiz looked good, but he warns that everyone should not get carried away by the win. 

"He fought good, but who did he fight? He fought a guy who didn’t have a good amateur background. And people who do not have a good amateur background cannot make adjustments," Holyfield said.