When Holyfield’s name came up during the news conference, Tyson almost sneered. Lost in the fury surrounding Neumann was Tyson’s readiness to fight his most prominent challenger, unbeaten Evander Holyfield, who watched from ringside. “This is business, right? You know the plays, you know the game.” “Something really funny was going on with this fight,” he said. This is a heavyweight championship fight, a guy goes down and you stop the fight? Excuse me? What is this, a one-knockdown state? I was standing up straight, ready to fight. “I was stunned, sure,” an angry Williams said later. It came from down low and caught Williams squarely on the chin. The finisher was half-hook, half-uppercut. About a half-minute before the end, he hurt Williams with a right hand to the ribs. This time, working inside, he unloaded crisp, powerful blows on his 6-foot-4 opponent. Gone this time were the wild, leaping punches. Tyson seemed more under control this time than he was in his five-round victory over Frank Bruno last February in Las Vegas. Neumann warned him about holding in the first minute. He didn’t retreat from the champion’s explosive charges, but he was using his left forearm in close to hold Tyson’s head down. “I asked him ‘Are you OK?’ twice, the first time he gave me a long blink, the lids came up. Later, Neumann was asked if he would have stopped the fight under similar circumstances if it had been Tyson who had been down. Most fighters will go out of their way to show you they’re ready to continue. When you get up from a knockdown, you gotta be ready to fight, not just be an erect target. I asked him, ‘Are you all right?’ and didn’t get an answer. He closed his eyes for a couple of seconds, and then I got a blank stare. “Yes, he was holding his hands up, but I was looking for more of a response than that.
Tyson-Williams was his 12th world title fight.
#MUHAMMAD ALI THE GREATEST TORRENT PLUS#
That, plus the look in his eyes, told me he was not in very good shape,” said Neumann, a former heavyweight who is now a New Jersey family financial planner. “I had a 10-second judgment to make, and he (Williams) could not answer a very simple question. At the time, many thought Williams was able to continue, although at that point his chances of winning the fight appeared hopeless.
0 kommentar(er)
