Evander Holyfield is
considered by most one of the greatest heavyweight fighters of all-time.. The 50
year old fighter was a hard hitting slugger in his prime and many didn’t want
to get into the ring with “The Real Deal”. They knew that they would be in for
a long night. Holyfield wasn’t the kind of fighter to back down and gave
everything he had once the bell rung to start fighting.
The once 4-time World Heavyweight
Champion of many titles, which includes the WBA, WBC and IBF titles. He’s the
only one in boxing history to do it that many times. Holyfield was born in
Alabama and raised in Atlanta, Georgia where he currently resides. That’s where
he first found the love to box and let me be real, that he was the best to do
it decades ago.
Holyfield was ready to
go pro at the age of 21 in 1984, where he started as a light heavyweight and
then to move up and dominate as a cruiserweight. Once the change happened in
weight class, that’s when the victories followed and the boxing world took
notice of this young contender. Now becoming champion wasn’t so far-fetched for
young Holyfield.
Holyfield always wanted
to fight the best and the best wanted to give him a shot because they knew that
the fight would be a big purse for them. But what they didn’t know was that
they would go on to lose to him while seeking the big dollars. Through
Holyfield’s career, he would go on to win bouts against boxing greats Mike
Tyson, Riddick Bowe, Larry Holmes, George Foreman and Michael Moore.
Now to get into the
most controversial fight of Holyfield’s career was the rematch with Mike Tyson
in 1997, where he got half of his ear bit off. Tyson knew that Holyfield was
too much for him as he seen the year earlier, but the champion wanted to give
Tyson another shot at the title and this is what came out of it. I remember
watching that fight and I was saying “is Tyson really ripping his ear off”. I
think us all were in that mindset at the time. That’s something we’ve never
seen before in fighting or any sport at that.
After that fight
Holyfield kept on pressing forward with fighting many other such as the likes
of Lenox Lewis. Looking back at Holyfield’s career we can say that he never
wanted to stop what he loved doing and that was boxing. Holyfield was mainly
criticized in his career for taking breaks and coming back to fight the big fish
and not being a consistent fighter. I just think that Holyfield like many other
great ones stayed in the game too long.
Look at it, Holyfield finally came to
conclusion the end of last year that he should walk away from the sport he
loves at the age 50. Now that’s old to me! The only sport that I would say he
could keep going is golf and some even say that’s not a sport. But I’m not
going to get into that one. Today Holyfield is fighting financial and child
support battles.
Years ago we’ve heard
whispers about him being broke and his Atlanta home being foreclosed on by the
bank and how he couldn’t pay certain debts. This is a man who made a fortune
and also a man that spent a lot as well. Having eleven children by six women
doesn’t help as well because these women will seek a lot of money a month from
you because of your profession. Holyfield is now seeking another comeback into
the sport. This was one of my favorite boxers growing up. I really enjoyed
seeing him slug it out with opponents. What are your greatest moments of
Holyfield’s career?
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