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Tale of the Tape

The 'Tale of the Tape' is purely the full descriptive analysis of 2 the fighters before they fight.  We will see an example here of the last Undisputed Heavyweight Title fight of the last millennium between 2 of the all time great Heavyweights.

WBC, WBA, IBF Heavyweight Championship of the World
Saturday 13th November 1999

Evander Holyfield
V Lennox Lewis
36 Age 33
15 Stone 5lbs (215lbs) Weight 17 Stone 8lbs (246lbs)
6 ft 2.5inches Height 6 ft 5
77.5 inches Reach 84 inches
43 inches Chest 44 inches
16 inches Biceps 17 inches
12.5 inches Forearms 15 inches
32 inches Waist 34 inches
22 inches Thigh 26 inches
13 inches Calf 18 inches
19.5 inches Neck 18 inches
7.5 inches Wrist 8 inches
8.5 inches Ankle 9 inches
12 inches Fist 12 inches
In-Fighter Style Out-Fighter
40 Fights 36
36 Wins 34
25 (KO's) 27
63% KO% 75%
1 Draws 1
3 Losses 1
1 (Stopped) 1

 

This, in addition to the Boxers Record of wins and losses, can prove useful for analysts and fans to predict how the fight may go.  In this case you can see that with Lennox Lewis being generally considered an Out-Fighter and having a long reach advantage over Holyfield that he will be attempting to outbox Evander by using his jab to keep him at long range.  Evander on the other hand being a natural infighter will attempt to use his footwork and get inside Lewis' reach and unleash his arsenal of straight punches and hooks.  However among the disadvantages for Evander in this fight are that at the age of 36 he may not be as nimble and agile as he used to be.  Furthermore even if he gets inside punching distance he will be against a man who is considered a bigger puncher.  Note Lewis' higher KO%.

The result of this fight was that Lennox Lewis beat Evander Holyfield comfortably on points with neither man scoring a knockdown.  Lewis' tactics worked.

Incidentally Lewis & Holyfield had fought 6 months previously and a controversial draw verdict was given by the 3 judges despite of the fact that almost all media pundits had Lewis winning comfortably on points.