GENEVA // Evander Holyfield, at the age of 46, will seek to win back a major heavyweight title when he fights Russian giant Nikolai Valuev for the WBA crown next month.
The fight will take place Dec 20 in the Hallenstadion in Zurich, Switzerland, arena management announced.
Holyfield has not fought since losing an unanimous decision to the then WBO champ Sultan Ibragimov a year ago.
The fighter from Atlanta known as the Real Deal has a 49-9-2 (win/lose/draw) career record and insists he wants to keep fighting until he regains the title again.
He also has been suffering from financial problems. Holyfield agreed in October to give his 10-year-old son a $100,000 college fund while facing the threat of possible jail time and an auction on his home.
In the summer he failed to make three straight $3,000 monthly child-support payments. Holyfield last held a major heavyweight title after winning a decision over John Ruiz for the WBA belt in 2000, subsequently losing and then drawing a bout against the same opponent in further title fights in 2001.
He challenged Chris Byrd for the vacant IBF belt in 2002, losing a unanimous decision.
The 7-foot, 330-pound Valuev once referred to as the Beast from the East but now preferring The Russian Giant won a unanimous decision over Ruiz in August to claim the vacant WBA crown.
He told the Zurich tabloid Blick that he was excited to face Holyfield. "I'm taking this fight very seriously, said the fighter with 49-1 record and 34 knockouts. Holyfield is a strong opponent. Ten years ago I would not have dreamed of getting into the ring with this champion."
The fight will be the biggest in Zurich since 1971, when Muhammad Ali knocked out Juergen Blin of Germany in the 7th round.
Holyfield's late bid for the title is not unprecedented. George Foreman was also aged 46 when he last defended the IBF heavyweight title in 1995.
*AP
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Will the pound fall to parity with the dollar?
The idea of pound parity now seems less far-fetched as the risk grows that Britain may split away from the European Union without a deal.
Rupert Harrison, a fund manager at BlackRock, sees the risk of it falling to trade level with the dollar on a no-deal Brexit. The view echoes Morgan Stanley’s recent forecast that the currency can plunge toward $1 (Dh3.67) on such an outcome. That isn’t the majority view yet – a Bloomberg survey this month estimated the pound will slide to $1.10 should the UK exit the bloc without an agreement.
New Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly said that Britain will leave the EU on the October 31 deadline with or without an agreement, fuelling concern the nation is headed for a disorderly departure and fanning pessimism toward the pound. Sterling has fallen more than 7 per cent in the past three months, the worst performance among major developed-market currencies.
“The pound is at a much lower level now but I still think a no-deal exit would lead to significant volatility and we could be testing parity on a really bad outcome,” said Mr Harrison, who manages more than $10 billion in assets at BlackRock. “We will see this game of chicken continue through August and that’s likely negative for sterling,” he said about the deadlocked Brexit talks.
The pound fell 0.8 per cent to $1.2033 on Friday, its weakest closing level since the 1980s, after a report on the second quarter showed the UK economy shrank for the first time in six years. The data means it is likely the Bank of England will cut interest rates, according to Mizuho Bank.
The BOE said in November that the currency could fall even below $1 in an analysis on possible worst-case Brexit scenarios. Options-based calculations showed around a 6.4 per cent chance of pound-dollar parity in the next one year, markedly higher than 0.2 per cent in early March when prospects of a no-deal outcome were seemingly off the table.
Bloomberg
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