Don King's 'Battle For Supremacy' night of heavyweight boxing turned into a battle for credibility at Madison Square Garden in New York.
While Britain's Danny Williams will next month take on WBC title holder Vitali Klitschko for the right to call himself the true heavyweight champion of the world, several pretenders to the throne failed to impress.
Andrew Golota was once again on the wrong end of a controversial decision as John Ruiz retained his WBA title with a unanimous points win.
Golota floored the champion twice in round two, the first time with a straight left and then bustling his opponent over without landing a telling blow.
Ruiz was also deducted a point for hitting Golota on the back of the head in the fourth round of an ugly fight riddled with constant fouling.
However, the American somehow still did enough to convince all three judges to vote in his favour, two by 114-111 and the other 113-112.
IBF champion Chris Byrd, who had been fortunate to escape with a draw against Golota in his previous fight, retained his belt with a majority points win over Jameel McCline, but only after being floored with a right hand at the end of round two.
The champion rallied well and eventually used his greater speed to good effect to get home by 115-112 and 114-113 on two of the judges' scorecards, although the third had McCline ahead 114-112.
The technically sound Byrd improved his record to 38-2-1 but again struggled to stamp any authority on the division.
The calls will grow for Evander Holyfield to hang up his gloves after the four-time heavyweight champion was easily outpointed by Larry Donald, via scores of 119-109 twice and 118-109.
Holyfield, hero of epic encounters against Mike Tyson, Riddick Bowe and Lennox Lewis in his glorious hey-day, saw his record fall to 38-8-2 and has now lost three on the bounce.
Former Lewis conqueror Hasim Rahman will target a clash with the winner of next month's clash between Klitschko and Williams after beating Kali Meehan in a WBC/WBA title eliminator.
