Holyfield an old fighter who maybe has lost his mind

Evander Holyfield doesn’t spar much anymore, maybe a few rounds here and there just to try and find his timing. He’s about to turn 45, and understands how hard it is to get up the next morning after trading punches with someone half his age.

That didn’t used to be the case, but a lot of things have changed in the decade that has passed since the former heavyweight champ was seen jumping around in the ring after a hungry Mike Tyson bit off part of his ear.

“I remember times when I would have three sparring partners and spar every day,” Holyfield said. “But the recovery time is a lot more when you’re older.”

The concession to age is a good sign. It gives us a tiny bit of hope that Holyfield realizes his time is long past and there’s not a lot of upside to risking the further scrambling of his brains in a business where the next punch could be your last.

Then he speaks again, and you realize this story will likely never have a happy ending.

“My goal is to become the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world,” Holyfield said. “A lot of people don’t think you can do things you know you can do. That’s just a part of life.”

While Holyfield has so far escaped obvious injury and can still string words into a sentence, there are not a lot of 45-year-olds who have taken as many punches to the head as he has during his long career and been able to tell anyone about it.

Holyfield fights for a piece of the heavyweight title today, which might be surprising for those who don’t follow boxing closely. They may have thought he had done the smart thing, taken the millions he made in the ring and long since retired to the solitude of his sprawling Atlanta mansion.

They would have thought wrong. Because at an age when most fighters are either on the banquet circuit or are trying to figure out how to tie their shoes again, Holyfield soldiers on in quest of his impossible dream.

There are some who cheer this man on a mission. Mostly, though, there are those who can’t help but wonder why.

He was once the undisputed champion of the world, a proud fighter who wore trunks with “Warrior” stitched across the front. And a warrior he was.

Now he’s simply an old fighter who has lost his reflexes, and just maybe his mind.

Holyfield wants to become the undisputed champion again like he was after beating Tyson, but he has about as much chance of doing that as he has of beating Hillary Clinton next fall to become president of the United States. The scary part is that, win or lose in Moscow against Russia’s Sultan Ibragimov, he still plans to keep on fighting.

“I wont retire either way,” Holyfield said. “Like I said, my goal is to be the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world, and that’s it.”

At one point it looked like we had seen the last of Holyfield, who was so pathetic in a lopsided decision loss to journeyman Larry Donald that New York boxing officials suspended him for a lack of reflexes. It was the third straight loss for Holyfield, who was stopped in his previous fight by James Toney.

But he took some time off and came back, beating an insurance salesman in Texas and a few fellow washed-up heavyweights after that. With the sorry state of the heavyweight division these days, that was more than enough to get him a title fight of sorts against Ibragimov, who owns a green plastic belt that signifies little to anyone unless you work for the World Boxing Organization.

The fight, such as it is, doesn’t figure to do much for Holyfield’s bank account, which has to be stretched by two ex-wives, 11 children and the ever-present IRS. He gets a piece of the pay-per-view, but the distribution is limited, the fight takes place at 10 a.m. PDT on a college football afternoon.

Whatever his purse, it’s a far cry from the days he got $35 million to fight Tyson, and you have to wonder if it is worth it after taking punches to the head as a pro for the last 23 years.

If you find yourself wanting to root for Holyfield, don’t. On the off chance he remembers how to punch and beats the lightly regarded Ibragimov, he could face Wladimir Klitschko, whom most consider the true heavyweight champion. Who can fight. And hit. Hard.