WBA champion Nikolai Valuev won a majority points decision against four-times world champion Evander Holyfield on Saturday in Zurich to end the American's hopes of becoming the oldest ever title-holder.

Holyfield, 46, made use of his greater mobility and experience to confound those who had criticised the supposedly one-sided nature of the bout and one of the three judges even awarded him a draw.

However, the other two favoured Valuev, who had controlled most of the fight with solid jabs, giving the 2.13-metre tall Russian victory by 116-112 and 115-114 points.

"I saw it the other way from the judges but I'm not disappointed by my performance," Holyfield told reporters soon after the fight.

"He's a tough opponent, the sheer size of him is of course the main factor but he fights well with it too and that's the problem."

Holyfield, who entered the ring a staggering 44 kilos lighter than Valuev as well as being 11 years his senior, was the clear favourite of the Swiss crowd and there were loud boos when the decision was announced.

Despite a lively start and some late lunges in the last two rounds, the former champion was generally unable to trouble the Russian. Valuev had plenty of chances to make the fight even more one-sided but failed to land more than a few glancing blows on two or three occasions when Holyfield left himself open.

By the eighth round, Holyfield appeared to be tiring, allowing Valuev to take steady control of the fight before fending off the American's late attempts to swing the contest his way.

Holyfield is planning to fight on despite the setback.

"I will go home, relax, enjoy Christmas and think about my future," he told a news conference.

"But I think I fought hard today and it's still my goal to become the undisputed world champion.

"I was honoured to get this opportunity to fight for the title and I tried to do what my corner told me to, which was to get him to move.

"I was able to get him off balance a couple of times and hit him with some pretty clean shots but it's pretty hard when you can't really step up to him.

"He has a pretty good defence and I was surprised at the speed of his hands because he is not as slow as people seem to think."