By Keith Idec
Evander Holyfield knocked out the man who dethroned Mike Tyson to become the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world, defeated George Foreman and won one of this three memorable bouts against Riddick Bowe before he fought Tyson in November 1996.
But it wasn’t until Holyfield stopped Tyson in the 11th round of their first fight in Las Vegas that the five-time heavyweight champ felt he got the respect and credit he deserved. Holyfield’s long journey toward finally fighting Tyson has been captured in “Chasing Tyson,” an ESPN “30 For 30” documentary that’ll debut Nov. 10 on ESPN (8 p.m. ET).
“I would say my greatest win was Tyson,” Holyfield said during an interview Wednesday with Alan Hahn and Rick DiPietro on their “Hahn & Humpty” radio show, which airs daily from noon-3 p.m. ET on ESPN New York (98.7 FM). “And the reason why it’s that is, the fact of the matter is everything I ever did beforehand, you know what they’d say? ‘He didn’t beat Tyson.’ They’d say, ‘Wait till you fight Tyson.’ Because they said I was the ultimate nice guy. Tyson was the ultimate bad guy. The bad guy would beat a good guy all the time. … When I beat Tyson, everybody zipped it up and said, ‘He can fight.’ ”
Before Holyfield beat Tyson, whom Holyfield defeated again by disqualification in their infamous “Bite Fight” seven months later in Las Vegas, even many of Holyfield’s supporters put an asterisk next to his first two reigns as undisputed heavyweight champion.
“The life’s mission was me becoming heavyweight champ of the world,” Holyfield told Hahn and DiPietro. “I became that in 1990. I thought it was going to make me this tremendous person. All it did is just, everybody criticized. ‘Ah, you know, man, you ain’t really the champion. You’re just holding that belt until Tyson comes and beats your behind.’ I had people [who] were actually upset with me. They said, ‘Well, you beat a fat Buster Douglas.’ I said, ‘Look, I didn’t tell him to become fat. What are y’all mad with me about?’ ”
Douglas weighed in at 231½ pounds the day before he upset Tyson by 10th-round knockout in February 1990 in Tokyo. The Columbus, Ohio native weighed 246 the day before facing Holyfield 8½ months later in Las Vegas.
Keith Idec covers boxing for The Record and Herald News, of Woodland Park, N.J., and BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
