The Warrior: Evander Holyfield

Evander Holyfield announced his retirement following his April 1994 loss to Michael Moorer. However, that bout did not see him in anything like his top form, and Holyfield's competitive spirit would not allow him to remain retired at the age of 31. He soon got a second opinion about his heart, and with a clean bill of health that he claimed came from God, went back to work.

To prove to the world that he was not a sick man, Holyfield need to come back with a big splash. He did that by meeting "Merciless" Ray Mercer in May 1995. Holyfield's viability as a star was proven in a rare non-title heavyweight fight that went to Pay-Per-View, and his viability as a top fighter was proven in the ring. The two men fought a war that saw the durable, anvil-jawed Mercer hit the canvas for the first time in his career. Mercer's chin remained undented; the knockdown was off of a vicious left hook to the body from Holyfield. The Real Deal won a Unanimous Decision by a wide margin on the scorecards. Holyfield was back.

However, another fighter who was back was Mike Tyson. Out of prison and with the attention of the world focused on him, Tyson and his promoter Don King effectively froze most other top heavyweights out of the title picture. With no one left to fight and no title shots available, Holyfield and long-time rival Riddick Bowe turned to each other for a rubber match that was dubbed the "real heavyweight championship." The third meeting between these two giants was anti-climactic. Holyfield was doing well and boxing Bowe, who lost a point in the 5th for fouling. Holyfield then caught Bowe with a smashing left hook in the 6th. Bowe collapsed in a corner in the first knockdown of his career. Holyfield threw everything but the kitchen sink at Bowe, who desperately tried to survive. Bowe made it, and Holyfield was spent. Bowe recovered, came back, and crushed a spent Holyfield in the 8th. It was the first time Holyfield had ever been stopped, and a sad moment for man whose conditioning and recuperative powers were his cornerstones as a professional fighter. The sports world immediately decided that Holyfield was sick after all, and began calling on him to quit.

The Real Deal's next fight did little to improve matters. In May 1996 he fought a fat, former light heavyweight champion named Bobby Czyz on HBO. Czyz came to survive and collect his paycheck, making little effort to fight back. Holyfield was desperate to knock him out, and attacked Czyz like a machine gun, but it is very hard to knock out a fighter who is there to just cover up and run away. It was an awful fight, and only produced more calls for Holyfield to quit..

At Last: Mike Tyson

An ironic result of the Bowe and Czyz fights is that it made Holyfield look shopworn and vulnerable. Don King was looking for a fighter with a reputation to get in the ring with Mike Tyson, but one who would pose no legitimate threat to him. Holyfield looked perfect. The two met in November 1996. Holyfield fought a masterful strategy: after unloading on Tyson, he would tie him up and use his superior leverage to push Tyson back on the ropes. When the referee came to break up the clinch, Holyfield would be positioned to unload again on an easy target. He did this over and over, dominating the fight, knocking Tyson down in the 6th, and out in the 11th. In defeating Mike Tyson, Holyfield had destroyed the Tyson myth, won the heavyweight crown for the 3rd time (only the second man since Muhammad Ali to do so), and cemented his own legacy.

Seven months later, the two fought their infamous re-match. Nothing had changed, and it looked like Tyson was on his way to an even earlier knockout loss. Instead of facing defeat, Tyson bit part of Holyfield's ear off. Holyfield had lost part of his ear to Mike Tyson, but he had gained the coveted position of being the clear and popular king of the heavyweight division. He now declared that he would not fight for less than $20 million, regardless of who the opponent was. For a while, he got purses that were at least that large.

In November 1997, Holyfield sought revenge against Michael Moorer, who had won back the IBF championship. In a WBA-IBF unification bout, Moorer managed to cut Holyfield early in the fight, pushing Holyfield to switch from boxing to punching. He knocked Moorer down a total of 5 times in the 5th, 7th, and 8th Rounds before knocking him out. It had taken 3 1/2 long years, but Holyfield was finally back to where he was before losing his first fight with Moorer.

At Last: Lennox Lewis

Lennox Lewis and Holyfield had been supposed to meet before the 1994 loss to Moorer. In the meantime, Lewis had also been dethroned and spent his time in the wilderness. Riddick Bowe had been beaten into retirement by the "Foul Pole" Andrew Golota, leaving them as the last two important heavyweighs of the 1990s left standing. They finally fought in March 1999 for the Undisputed World Heavyweight Championship.

The result was a farce. Lewis boxed cautiously and respectfully, while Holyfield did not try to force the action after the 3rd Round. Lewis did little other than jab, but that was enough to rack up points and he should have won. The result was a Draw so stinky it nearly resulted in a Federal investigation. In the rematch that soon followed, Holyfield did much better and produced a close fight, proving once more that he was a dangerous man to meet in a rematch. However, because of the awful taste that the first bout left in the mouths' of the entire boxing world, Holyfield would have needed to dominate or knockout Lewis to win. Lennox Lewis walked away with the decision he should have gotten in the first bout.

The John Ruiz Trilogy

Don King had Holyfield, but not Lewis under contract. Always thinking a few steps ahead, he already had a plan to get back into heavyweight title action. John Ruiz, another Don King fighter, was the WBA's #1 contender. Lewis was ordered to meet him immediately. Lewis balked in favor of meeting more formidable opponents in better paid bouts, and was stripped by the WBA. The result left a belt free, and Evander Holyfield and John Ruiz fought over it in August 2000.

John "The Quiet Man" Ruiz of Puerto Rico was an awkward boxer who had already been beaten by Danell Nicholson and knocked out by David Tua. He remains a boring fighter to watch, whose mastery of the jab-and-clinch style of heavyweight boxing may pile on the points, but at the cost of grinding all action to a halt. This is exactly what he did to Evander Holyfield, and the result was a close-but-clear win for the Warrior. He was now technically a four-time champion, but given that Lewis was by all rights the Undisputed World Champion at the time, the claim remains dubious. The clearer result was revealing how badly Holyfield was fading.

The close win resulted in a rematch in March 2001, and this time it was Ruiz who won the match. The 38 year old Holyfield appeared lethargic, and was knocked down by a right to the temple in the 11th. Ruiz became the first Latino to win a heavyweight crown.

Not satisfied with two boring fights, King produced a third. This bout was another close contest, and ruled a Draw.

In Quest of a Fifth Title

Holyfield announced that he would not retire until he had won back the Undisputed World Title. In June 2002, he fought the Baltimore knucklehead Hasim Rahman, who was fresh from winning and then losing that title from Lennox Lewis. The bout was an eliminator to determine who the #1 WBA contender would be. Even an aging Holyfield had enough to outbox Rahman, and he was leading on two scorecards when a headbutt-produced hematoma on Rahman's forehead swelled to dangerous proportions in the 8th Round. The bout was stopped, and Holyfield won by Technical Decision.

However, the WBA title shot never materialized, so Holyfield fought the slick, defensive wizard Chris Byrd for the vacant IBF strap. Byrd's speed and elusiveness proved too much for Holyfield, who found "pulling the trigger" increasingly difficult. He lost a lopsided points decision. In 2004 he fought Larry Donald with even worse results. Holyfield was so awful against Donald that the New York State Athletic Commission suspended him for health reasons.

The Warrior began a new comeback in August 2006. He notched up four wins, including decision victories over fringe contenders Fres Oquiendo and Lou Savarese. Holyfield looked better than he had in years, and it was enough to get him a date in Moscow with WBO Champion Sultan Ibragimov. Holyfield did well in the first few rounds and in the last round, but otherwise it was Ibragimov's show in what proved to be a tactical boxing match. Ibragimov won cleanly, although not by the huge margins the scorecards gave him.

Holyfield's next outing was to meet the giant Nikolai Valuev in Switzerland in December 2008. Although at 45, Holyfield was now well past his prime. He had never done well against truly big heavyweights, and Valuev was 7' and 310 lbs. Holyfield swept the first six rounds, as Valuev could not get his jab established. Finally doing this, Valuev gained control and carried Rounds 7,8 and 9. Then Holyfield changed tack and began landing bombs on what proved to be a huge, immobile target for the 10th, 11th, and 12th. All observers agree that Holyfield won the fight, but he was shamefully robbed by European judging in a Majority Decision loss.

Evander Holyfield remains active and unretired today.

Sources: personal experience; live fight footage; The Ring; Dark Trade; ESPN; boxrec.com; evanderholyfield.com