Why doesn't anyone ever talk about Holyfield's holding in the first Tyson fight?

[sunny31]

People can make all kinds of excuses but the bottom line is this: Holyfield absolutely schooled, whooped and did a number on Mike Tyson in both fights, he was beating Tyson in all aspects of the game, he wasn't excessively holding, he wasn't intentionally headbutting, he was controlling Tyson the way any veteran in the game would do to neutralize a short aggressive fighter, tricks of the trade, no return fire, excellent job by Holyfield in both fights.

I'll say this though, Holyfield was definitley roided up to the gills in both fights, I'm sure Tyson was also on something but I think the stuff Holyfield was on was way more hardcore, but that's only my opinion though. That's the only thing I can say in favor of Mike and it's only a speculaion, we'll never know for a fact since drug testing in heavyweight boxing at the time was a joke.

Strong chance he was juicing I would say, he looked huge in comparison to what he looked like a couple of years earlier, but his weight wasn't any different.

Agree to disagree on the holding and rough house tactics though. I am not ignorant to that side of the game, within reason, but in this instance I felt it was excessive and to the point where it may have affected the outcome of the fight. Obviously not anyone could do what Holyfield did, fighters have held Tyson in other fights, but when you combine the holding with Holyfield's skill set and ability then Tyson could not overcome that.

Personally looking back at it now, I would have like to see how the fight would play out if the ref had got on Holyfield early about the holding, like in the Bruno fight, so the action was a little cleaner.

[Street]

People hardly talk about things that happened ions ago unless it was something epic.

Holyfield holding Tyson was not an epic event. That's why people don't talk about it

[sunny31]

Cuz it's 2017 and that's old sh^t.

If you wanna hear some cats talk about it doe Tyson had Lennox Lewis on his podcast a month or two ago and they talked about how dirty Holyfield was.

Fair play - but even back then it was not highlighted at all. It was like everyone was happy because it was the 'right' result for boxing. But so many complaints especially in recent years about dirty tactics, I thought it was relevant.

That sounds like an interesting podcast, might have to try and find it.

[sunny31]

People hardly talk about things that happened ions ago unless it was something epic.

Holyfield holding Tyson was not an epic event. That's why people don't talk about it

Well the fight in itself was a memorable event - and lots of talk about holding and dirty tactics affecting fights recently, but this is an example of it happening on the absolute biggest stage, but strangely everyone kind of turned a blind eye to it.

[Steven Mccowan]

Fair play - but even back then it was not highlighted at all. It was like everyone was happy because it was the 'right' result for boxing. But so many complaints especially in recent years about dirty tactics, I thought it was relevant.

That sounds like an interesting podcast, might have to try and find it.

Yeah i heard that one too. Its called. Bite the mic

[Banderivets]

Not just Holyfield but many American fighters, and not Americans for that mater.

I remember watching Klitschko bros in Ukraine as a kid, and we all used to wonder why these damn Yanks hold so much. Mind you they were on the come up back then but every time they fought an American all you'd see is constant clinching.

Look at fights from the golden era...How many clinch fests? And they saw modern HW boxing is boring...Ali? Clinch much?

Bottom line is that clinching is part of boxing. It's just that people like to cry about it when their fighter looses while being completely blind when their own guy does it.

Ward and Floyd some of p4p best of the decade some would argue, but notorious holders.

Objectivity, you won't find it with fan boys.