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AJ McKenzie
  • 1 day ago
The Real Deal
IG: aj_mckenzie416
Twitter: AJMckenzie94847
Transcript
00:21What made Evander Holyfield such an amazing boxer is the fact that no matter who he fought,
00:29no matter what the challenge was, the fans were guaranteed an exciting fight.
00:42You didn't sit down without chills for one second when Evander was fighting.
00:49He was a pit bull in the ring.
00:57His aggressiveness, his relentlessness were all parts of the package that Evander Holyfield brought in the ring.
01:07Almost no fighter in the last 30 years has had as complete an offensive arsenal as Evander Holyfield.
01:15One of the great things about Evander, he has a chin of stone. You can hit him with a sledgehammer,
01:21he's not going down that easy.
01:23When you hit him, you touched the very heart and soul of Evander. Holyfield's pleasure was getting down and saying,
01:34okay, I can take yours, can you take mine?
01:38Most fighters try to camouflage, they fear, he had no head.
01:45He reminds me of a true gladiator, a true warrior, blood, sweat and tears.
01:50That's Evander Holyfield.
01:52Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on.
01:55Holyfield in trouble.
01:58Hanging on for his life.
02:00Bowe beat the hell out of Holyfield.
02:03He beat the life out of him and another life jumped back in him.
02:09I'm like, there's got to be a ghost in this building somewhere. How's that man still standing up?
02:14Holyfield was one punch away at a couple different times from going down and now he comes back with a
02:20big uppercut and Bowe's in some trouble.
02:24The second fight with Mike Tyson, I don't think I've ever seen anything more courageous than Evander Holyfield with a
02:34half moon shaped thing out of his ear, the blood running down his face, yelling at his corner, give me
02:40the mouthpiece and knock him out.
02:42When he came back to fight Ray Mercer and got cut at one point in that fight, when the doctor
02:48came in and said, you know, are you okay? Do you want to continue?
02:51Evander gave him a look like, are you out of your mind? Do you know? And as if to say,
02:55do you know who you're talking to?
02:58He was a black Rocky Balboa. He was the guy that you could pull for because you know that in
03:04all these different challenges, all these different issues to overcome.
03:08Joe Frazier was the black Rocky Balboa.
03:11He did it. Time and time again.
03:18Major among those challenges was the difference between Holyfield and his larger opponents in an era when many pundits of
03:24the sweet science had lost their sense of proportion when bigger was often considered better.
03:29He is the only heavyweight to have won the title four times.
03:33Evander Holyfield was the little big man who could. Everybody felt he wasn't quite good enough. He wasn't quite big
03:44enough. He wasn't quite strong enough. And that was the fuel that drove his engine.
03:52Let them say what they want about him being too small. We knew one thing. They can never take his
03:58heart away from him. And I think that was the biggest, the biggest asset he had in his heart.
04:03His strength, I think, came from a different place. And part of the reason why we underestimated him is because
04:09we couldn't see that place. And that was really the soul of a great fighter and a person who knew
04:14what he wanted out of life.
04:16You refused to cave into our expectations of him.
04:20Polofield challenged our view of what a heavyweight was in many ways. First of all, he really wasn't a knockout
04:26fighter. And then he brought this demeanor that was the antithesis of Mike Tyson. Mike Tyson talked about crushing your
04:36brain and, well, Evander was just going to pray for you and just try to beat you and move on.
04:53There's no pretense. There's nothing phony about him. A guy who walks around without an entourage. He is always going
05:00to be the guy who grew up in Atlanta with nothing and trying to become something.
05:05I think Evander, no matter how many millions he has made, still believes he's going to go to the refrigerator
05:11and find it empty.
05:13And that paranoia has driven a lot of what he's accomplished in life.
05:17Here's a guy, got enough money to air-condition hell. You know, he can go to Neymar markers, Burberrys, wherever
05:23he wanted to shop at. This guy goes to Kmart to shop.
05:27Evander Holofield was a little bit of a paradox. He had this huge house. It's like the Coliseum of Atlanta.
05:36But he was also very humble.
05:37I had asked a young man, why are you building such a huge joint? He said, well, you know, Rockefeller's
05:42got their spot. Elvis got his spot. I want to build something for my family.
05:47Certainly Evander's home. I think it was, in a sense, built as a monument unto himself. While he appeared to
05:53be very humble, Evander probably also has the largest ego of any athlete I've ever met.
05:59And I don't say that in a derogatory way. For Evander Holofield, that is what drives him. He wants to
06:04go where people don't think he can go as an athlete and as a person.
06:09If God forbid you went holding with him, he would not let you leave if you won a game. If
06:15you won a game, he would have to ball another one and beat you and remind you who won.
06:21He's on this show dancing with the stars and he finally gets eliminated. I said, well, did you have fun?
06:28No, I lost. And he won. I'm telling you, as distraught and disheartened as I've ever seen him after a
06:35fight. Ever.
06:36One of Evander's friends once told me that he perceives himself as Mr. Perfect and when he's unable to sustain
06:45that self-image, he gets down on himself.
06:48And maybe that perfectionism is what drove him to become heavyweight champion in the face of all odds.
07:08The youngest of nine, Evander Holofield, was just four when his mother Annie relocated her family from rural Alabama to
07:16the Summerhill section of Atlanta in 1967.
07:19Evander's mother was a tremendous influence in his life. A single mom working very hard. And I think he saw
07:26that as an example. You can get what you want if you're willing to put the work in.
07:31I truly believe all that I am today is because of my mother. How she inspired me. How she stayed
07:40on. How she just structured me. My mother was my hero.
07:46Growing up, he always said that if he ever did something, his mom would bust him up. He realized that
07:53his mom wanted him to follow a straight and narrow path.
07:56The only thing that I wanted to do is make my mama happy. I'm the one that got three whoopings
08:01a day. I was always in trouble. I was a classroom clown. I wanted some tension. I wanted to be
08:08loved. But, you know, I was going by the wrong way to do it.
08:13Not having known his natural father until he was 21, Holyfield sought paternal recognition on Atlanta's playing fields.
08:22My whole life I was inspired by men because my daddy wasn't there. So when I went out and played
08:29sports, I played so hard for the coaches because I wanted them to pat me on my back.
08:39The Warren Memorial Boys Club provided an opportunity for the athletic Holyfield to gain approval and a sense of purpose.
08:46At age eight, the boy who harbored dreams of playing for the Atlanta Falcons became seduced by another sport.
08:52The thing that sort of enthralled him was the speed bag. The sound of the speed bag.
09:00He asked the coach there, Carter Morgan, if he could hit the speed bag and the coach told him that
09:06was only for kids who were on the boxing team and if he wanted to hit it, he could join
09:10the boxing team.
09:10Carter Morgan was a father figure. He was the type of man that every child would want in their life
09:18in terms of giving you good advice but yet loving you the way a man should love, you know, a
09:24son.
09:25In the era I grew up, they told me I wasn't going to be anything. The only person that ever
09:31told me that I could really be something was my mama. And the second person was that white man, Carter
09:39Morgan.
09:40Carter Morgan said to him, one day, son, you're going to be a champion. And from that day on, that
09:46stage ring and that little engine that could called Evander Holyfield went on that one track mind to become a
09:57champion.
09:59Undefeated in his first three years in the ring, Holyfield fought a tough kid named Cecil Collins and suffered his
10:05first loss. When the 11-year-old told his mother his boxing career was over, she had a powerful response.
10:12She told him in no uncertain terms that he's not quitting the boxing team and that she didn't raise a
10:18quitter and that if he wants to stop boxing, he can stop and he's going to stop after he beat
10:23Cecil Collins or never.
10:25And wouldn't you know it, he had a second fight with Cecil Collins. And he lost again. And he went
10:32home and said, I quit. And she said, you won't quit.
10:35A few months later, he fought that same young man again. And he beat him. And he went running home
10:41to tell his mom. And she looked at him and she said, now you can quit. And he's like, I
10:47don't want to quit.
10:50He fought on learning his craft and piling up victories. When he was 16, Holyfield lost his coach and father
10:58figure Carter Morgan to Emphysema.
11:00Then, after winning a silver medal at the 1983 Pan Am Games, Holyfield twice defeated world amateur champion Ricky Womack
11:07to earn a spot in the 1984 U.S. Olympic team.
11:11Then he gets robbed in the Olympics.
11:13Which began. He was knocking out everybody he fought. Bang, bang, bang. Three straight knocks.
11:19In the semifinals, Holyfield faced Kevin Barry of New Zealand.
11:23Look at Holyfield. He's ready. He's got the opponent hurt again. He's ready to put him away.
11:30Comes a moment right before the bell of the second round and he clocks Barry and knocks him out.
11:46Now the Yugoslav referee does an interesting thing. He waves Holyfield over to the corner. He counts out Barry. Knockout.
11:56He then turns to Holyfield and disqualifies him from having hit on a voice signal stop.
12:03What?
12:04He's going to disqualify Amanda Holyfield.
12:08If you throw in a punch and the referee say break at the same time, you can't stop.
12:16He got jerked out of a gold medal. Everybody on God's green earth realizes, you know, and knows that he
12:24won that fight.
12:24Look at Holyfield's face. What an untoward development.
12:30After he was disqualified, I didn't know exactly how he would react. He took it with such grace and class
12:38that it was almost unbelievable.
12:39That's when I marked him as somebody special.
12:43The Yugoslavian fight who actually got the benefit of this bizarre decision to disqualify Holyfield simply turned to Holyfield who
12:53was standing several inches below him on the bronze medal stand and asked him to come up with him on
12:59the top left.
13:00It's certainly one of the great Olympic moments in modern times.
13:04In an ironic way, that disqualification made everybody notice who Evander Holyfield was.
13:10And it really, in the long run, helped create Evander's turning pro and the mystique around him.
13:29I don't think the boxing community at large has given Evander enough credit for the total package that he brought
13:36to the ring.
13:37I don't think he's been respected as a boxer who defined his time.
13:44Three months after the 1984 Olympics, Evander Holyfield turned pro and made an immediate impact in the cruiserweight division.
13:55Look at how accurate he is. He was one of the most accurate.
13:59In his 12th professional fight, he was fighting for the world title against Dwight Kawi, a former prison inmate.
14:05If you look up the definition of tough in the dictionary, there's a picture of Dwight Kawi's mug right there.
14:10That fight was war.
14:14It was like life and death every round.
14:23Evander has to defend himself.
14:25They have to be able to find the end of the world.
14:28I expected him to be real fast and coming out.
14:31But the one thing I didn't expect is him to go the distance.
14:35I asked anybody, anybody to see that fight, they get tired and watch it.
14:38That particular fight showed me beyond the shadow of a doubt what reservoir of strength and belief that this guy
14:49had.
14:50For the winner, a new winner, Evander Holyfield!
14:59Evander was so dehydrated after that fight, he was admitted to the hospital to keep giving him perineral fluids.
15:06They were even worried about his kidneys shutting down.
15:10I remember telling my manager at the time, look, I don't think I want to be champion no more.
15:16He said, what you mean?
15:17I said, man, I almost died in that doggone rain.
15:25Despite the punishment, Holyfield wanted more fights and bigger paydays.
15:29With an 18-0 record in 1988, the undisputed cruiserweight champion was ready to declare himself a heavyweight.
15:35But at less than 200 pounds, he would first have to gain strength and bulk to compete effectively.
15:42It became what they called the Omega Project, to create this guy from a cruiserweight into a heavyweight.
15:47And he went out on an intensive training program.
15:51I was trying to find ways to train the heart rate and start putting some muscle on him.
15:56And over a course of a couple of years, I put about 30 pounds on him that was legitimate.
16:01It wasn't steroids, it wasn't drugs.
16:04He was always considered the little engine that could, but still people couldn't believe that this little engine was actually
16:09doing what he was doing.
16:11So then he had the steroid thing come up.
16:14Evander told me one time he thought it would be cheating to do something like that.
16:18But he was so driven to be the best that you just don't know what a man's capable of sometimes.
16:30The fraternity, composed of writers, managers and trainers, skeptically call him just a blown up cruiserweight.
16:41He comes to what might best be called a crossroad fight against Michael Dokes.
16:47Michael Dokes was a former heavyweight champion.
16:49Michael Dokes, former heavyweight champion, crossed the road and ended the fight.
16:54He still had the naysayers, but to himself he had proven that he belonged in the heavyweight division.
17:01I had a great quote which George Benton, Holyfield's trainer, had given to me about the fact that nobody really
17:08appreciated his heavyweight.
17:09And he said, I'm giving them classical music and all they want is rap.
17:13And he was talking about Tyson.
17:14The public's appetite at that point was for everything Tyson.
17:21When Mike Tyson shocked the world by losing his crown to Buster Douglas in February of 1990, Holyfield was next
17:28in line for the new title holder.
17:30And that October, the fighter who was told he was going nowhere, fought for the championship of the world.
17:36That miss was trying to take him out, but the Holyfield boxed the hell out of him.
17:41With the left hand, with the left hand, make it any pity.
17:44And then all of a sudden, bam, crushing right hand.
17:50And at first, I just say, oh, he's getting up.
17:53I know he's gonna get up.
17:55And then I'm watching the referee, seven, eight, nine.
17:59There's a new heavyweight champion in the world!
18:02And his name is Evander Holyfield!
18:07As spectacular as Holyfield's one-punch knockout of Buster Douglas was,
18:11it really didn't convince anybody that he was a real heavyweight champion.
18:16They disrespected me because I didn't beat Tyson, but I didn't have nothing to do with Tyson losing this Buster
18:23Douglas.
18:24It was some kind of way they were trying to rob me of this 20-year goal.
18:31The first reign of Evander Holyfield was really a very tough one for him because he was stuck in no
18:37-win fights.
18:37He fights George Foreman, who's 87 years old, and he beats him.
18:43Then he fights Bert Cooper, gets knocked down, goes on and wins.
18:47Then he fights Larry Holmes, who's 67 years old.
18:50He beats him, doesn't look particularly good doing, doesn't knock him out.
18:53The prerequisite for fighting a nondescript champion like Holyfield is you have to be over 40,
18:59and you have to be a drunk, a derelict, or a drug addict.
19:03Do you know what I mean?
19:03That's the only way you can fight Holyfield. He's a loser!
19:08Holyfield once told me that he felt like Charlie Brown, and by that he meant it was always raining on
19:14him.
19:15I think Evander kind of felt, why is everybody picking on me?
19:22The big task came in November of 1992, when the 6'2", 205 pound Holyfield met undefeated Riddick Bowe,
19:30who was three inches taller and 30 pounds heavier.
19:33He thought that Bowe was soft, and that he could jump in his face, and through his great will, persistence,
19:45and stamina, break him down.
19:48He was wrong.
19:50Bowe is really going after him!
19:54Evander, on paper, shouldn't have been able to compete with Riddick,
19:58and yet he had one of the greatest wars of all time with Riddick Bowe in that first fight.
20:04Another right!
20:06And another!
20:13For all his courage, speed, and agility, Holyfield lost his title to Bowe by unanimous decision.
20:19Battered and drained, the 30-year-old perfectionist said he was retiring, not knowing that he was on the brink
20:25of acceptance.
20:26I don't think that Evander Holyfield got the true respect that he deserved as a heavyweight until he lost against
20:36Riddick Bowe.
20:38In June of 1993, a refreshed Holyfield returned to the ring, his mission to regain the crown.
20:45After defeating Alex Stewart, he met Bowe in November in Las Vegas.
20:49In the seventh round, the specter of Charlie Brown revisited Holyfield when an unscheduled visitor reigned on his comeback.
20:56A parachutist mysteriously came out of the sky at a minute and ten seconds of the seventh round.
21:02That caused a 21-minute delay in the fight.
21:05I remember it being a fascinating fight on some level, but really the only thing that stands out to me
21:10is Fan Man, which is a complete and utter disservice to Evander Holyfield.
21:13They went 21-inits standing there in the cold, and then he had to start all over again and never
21:18lost his focus, closed the deal and won the fight.
21:21The fact that he was able to box and minimize the exchanges in the second fight, that showed really what
21:27a great fighter he was, because he was able to make the adjustment even though it was against his very
21:31nature.
21:31That, to me, is the greatest moment of his career.
21:35I don't think anything gave Evander as much happiness as beating somebody who the whole world said he couldn't beat.
21:42Especially after he beat Bo, that, see, there, I showed you. I could do it. That drove him incredibly.
21:55The Lord is good, and he's good all the time.
22:04He makes a way out of no way.
22:09I think the role of religion was a man that was the lifesaver in the middle of an ocean when
22:15it needed to be.
22:17I think it was a buoy, you know, that was floating there to grab onto and pull him where he
22:24had to be pulled when he was in tough situations.
22:27It's the most important thing in his life, you know, because his mother instilled that in him from the time
22:34he could walk and talk.
22:37All of your life you've been told, in terms of your pursuit of what you're trying to do, that you
22:41can't do.
22:42And yet there's a scripture that he wore on his trunk.
22:45Philippians 4.13 says, I can do all things through Christ that strengthen me.
22:49He has genuinely believed through his career that he was on a mission that was bigger than just boxing.
23:02That particular belief propelled and inspired him to reach his potential and then to go way beyond that.
23:12I thank God for allowing me to be a vessel.
23:17I thank God for allowing me to change the world with this fight.
23:22I bear witness there's one God and I bear witness the prophet Muhammad is the prophet of God.
23:27Holyfield said to me, I'll tell you what this fight's about.
23:32I'm going to show Mike Tyson my God's more powerful than his God.
23:36One thing in life I want you all to know, you can count me out, but I believe in Jesus.
23:42Because I believe in Jesus, I can get over things.
23:47Early this morning in Atlanta, 35 year old Willie Holyfield was shot and killed in his home.
23:53Willie Holyfield is the older brother of Evander Holyfield, the world heavyweight champion.
23:59In 1996, four years after the murder of his brother Willie, Holyfield's mother Annie died from injuries sustained in a
24:06car accident.
24:08Then in 1998, his brother James was sentenced to life in prison for rape and child molestation.
24:14I've seen him endure more things than most human beings can endure.
24:19If he didn't have the faith that he has, I mean, he'd probably be a basket case with all the
24:26problems he'd have.
24:33All more thus far. Evander bleeding, holding on.
24:41After Holyfield lost his title to Michael Moore in April of 1994, he was hospitalized and diagnosed with a serious
24:48heart ailment, a non-compliant left ventricle.
24:51I have to thank the Lord for letting me have 23 years of this Boston career.
24:57I think Evander in his heart, so to speak, never really felt like he was finished.
25:03And certainly he never wanted his career to end that way.
25:06When medical science failed him, he was going to what he considered to be a higher authority.
25:10And just caught up in this very charismatic man and his charismatic mission.
25:21Emotionally at sea, Holyfield fought back by praying and attending revivals led by faith healer Benny Hinn.
25:29Benny spoke, do you believe that God can heal you?
25:33And Evander said, yeah.
25:34He said, do you want to be healed?
25:36And Evander said, yeah.
25:37So he had him to come up on stage.
25:41And Evander was slain in the spirit.
25:44I went to the Benny Hinn thing and he said, you know, hey, your heart is healed.
25:48Go back to the doctor and tell him to check it out.
25:51As it turned out, the heart ailment that he supposedly had was somewhat misdiagnosed
25:58because in the emergency room after the fight, he had been over-hydrated and over-drugged with too many painkillers.
26:05There is no question that Evander had abnormalities of his heart shortly after the Michael Moore fight.
26:15How they got better, how they improved, I don't have the answer.
26:23Whether Hinn healed Holyfield's heart, he undoubtedly influenced his love life by introducing him to his second wife, Janice Itzen.
26:30A bachelor since his first marriage ended after six years in 1991, Holyfield was struck by Itzen's spiritual knowledge.
26:39I thought because she knew the Word of God and she knew more about the Word of God than me,
26:44then this got to be a perfect fit.
26:46Because God will want me somebody who knows the Word of God.
26:49But I wasn't in love with her.
26:52Holyfield basically came home on a weekend while he was training for a fight in Houston and said, let's get
26:59married.
26:59And they ended up getting married by Justice of the Peace with Holyfield's son standing up as the best man.
27:06And their wedding dinner was at Shoney's.
27:12In September of 1998, a week after the birth of the couple's first child, it was revealed publicly that Holyfield
27:19had fathered five children out of wedlock, including two in the previous year, with four different women.
27:25Evander and Janice divorced in 2000.
27:28I said to him one time, you must be reading the Reader's Digest version of the Bible. There's like a
27:32whole sections in there that, you know, somehow appear to be missing.
27:36Lennox Lewis really put him on the spot. Lennox said, well, he is a hypocrite. He said, I don't like
27:43to question his faith, but he works the commandment every 10 seconds.
27:47In a few instances, he did not avoid the temptation. And as he said, he was weak and made mistakes
27:54and did things that he wished he hadn't done.
27:56His sexual immorality, that's probably the biggest crippling thing in his life. He's even made the comment, if I was
28:03as disciplined in my relationship as I have been in training, I probably wouldn't have all the problems that I
28:09have.
28:09Now I said, Evander, how can you justify being the strong Christian and at the same time have all of
28:15these illegitimate children? And his response was, looking at me in disbelief, why take care of them?
28:20He's been responsible for his children financially, emotionally, parentally.
28:28Lennox Lewis has this idea that I grew up without a father and I don't want my kids to feel
28:33that. And so I'm going to do everything in my power to be actively involved and try to share with
28:38them the things that I think I missed out on.
28:43His faith in God is real. Who he is is real. Is he perfect? No. Has he done things that
28:49go against God's word? Yes.
28:52He had his failings. There were times Evander tried to make the religion fit what he wanted rather than the
28:59other way around. And I think that was a real inner struggle for Evander Holyfield.
29:03Although he was very faithful to his religious beliefs, there are things percolating underneath the surface that have a lot
29:11to do with the absence of the father and that have a lot to do with self-esteem issues that
29:16have a lot to do with people telling you all your life, you're not going to be anything. And that's
29:20got to come out somewhere. That stuff doesn't just sit quietly inside you.
29:24Right.
29:25For Douglas. And then when Douglas knocked out Tyson, then Evander got the Douglas fight.
29:32After he'd beaten Buster Douglas and disposed of 42-year-old George Foreman, Evander Holyfield prepared to fight Mike Tyson.
29:39But three weeks before they were to meet in November of 1991, Tyson withdrew, claiming he had suffered a rib
29:45cage injury. Before the fight was rescheduled, Tyson was convicted of rape and sent to prison.
29:51He knew he had to beat Tyson. I guarantee you that until Mike got out of jail, Evander was haunted
29:58by that. He was tormented.
29:59When I was training Evander for the second fight with Little Bull, he says, you know, Emmanuel, I sure he
30:06didn't. Mike is locked up because everybody's so afraid of Mike. Then he said, that's the one fight I want
30:12more than anything.
30:15Holyfield had his reasons. During the 1984 Olympic training camp, he volunteered to spar with the younger but heavier Tyson,
30:22who was an alternate on the squad.
30:24They had a war and the coach had to break it up to keep two of his best fighters from
30:28getting hurt.
30:29Mike was the guy that all of them feared. I wasn't afraid to talk to him. And everything was kind
30:38of cordial with him and wasn't nothing to be afraid of.
30:43They were shooting pool. Evander Holyfield was waiting his turn. Mike Tyson was cleaning up on all the other guys
30:51and eventually Tyson got beaten on the table.
30:55And he decided he wasn't going to give up the cue stick. And eventually Evander convinced him it would be
31:02the smart thing to do.
31:03Those right there were encounters that he knew, when the pressure was on, that he wasn't going to quit. Mike
31:12wasn't going to quit.
31:13Exactly.
31:13Oldfield and Tyson had a big press conference in New York before the fight that never happened. And afterward, HBO's
31:21cameras took them and recorded a little face to face. I snuck back and watched. The two of them...
31:27Mike Tyson's dressed like his 1940s Harlem.
31:30Walked up to each other, stood face to face, and both of them instantly started laughing. They couldn't do it.
31:36It was like two friends. It was like two brothers who just couldn't fake the animosity.
31:45Five years later, in November of 1996, they met in the ring. Tyson, released from prison after three years, had
31:52won back the WBA heavyweight title. Holyfield had lost to Bo in their third match.
31:58Evander's career in the ring wasn't going as we had hoped. And that was a setback. But it set up
32:05the opportunity for a comeback. Because that's how we were able to persuade Don King to put Tyson in there
32:12with Evander.
32:13Because King was certain that Evander was shot. Evander's a 25 to 1 underdog. There were a lot of people
32:19paranoid that Tyson was really seriously going to physically hurt Evander in the fight.
32:25Bell rings round one. Tyson flies out of the corner. And within the first three seconds, he buckles Evander's knees
32:32with a hard right that I'm telling you, I and everyone else thought that fight was over. Evander straightened himself,
32:41hit Tyson back.
32:43At the end of that first round, Tyson hit Holyfield after the bell. The referee jumped between and Holyfield went
32:49right over him and threw a punch back. And he said something to Tyson.
32:53Tyson's eyes just widened to saucer-like eyes. And you knew then and there, that fight was over. Yes, it
33:02took 10 more rounds, but that fight was over.
33:07One of the things that Evander Holyfield knew about Mike Tyson was that he was not built for a long,
33:12endurance, war of attrition kind of a fight. And that's what Evander Holyfield was going to give him.
33:18I can fight on the outside. I can fight on the inside. And the only way that Tyson could fight
33:23is coming forth. And I wasn't going backwards.
33:26Man, phew. He put something on Mike Tyson. I was surprised he lasted as long as he did. I mean,
33:33Evander was hitting him with some shots, man. My toes was curling up and I'm in the corner.
33:38The announcement of his boxing death had been performed many times. And here he goes, smacks Tyson around in the
33:47ring, and he proved the critics wrong once again. At that point, I was okay with them putting an S
33:53on his chest.
33:56Seven and a half months later, Holyfield and Tyson met again.
34:01The third round, Tyson came out and threw every piece of arsenal he had at Holyfield. It absolutely did nothing
34:10to keep Holyfield away.
34:13Mike just snapped. You know, he was probably pissed off and things weren't going his way.
34:22And all of a sudden, Evander went straight up in the air like a frightened cat. And I went, what
34:30the hell was that?
34:32Tyson then spits out the piece of ear. And the piece of ear comes flying across the ring and lands
34:37nearby. And you're just like, I cannot believe what I just saw.
34:42I got in the ring. Evander was calm. You could see he was PO'd, but he was calm. And when
34:49I said, this is fine. We can fix this Evander. You go fight. He was comfortable with that.
34:55He hit his ear like this with his glove. And then he said, let's go. Let's go.
34:59I came right on him. And when I hit him with a one-two and all that, he bit the
35:05other one. He realized that it wasn't going to stop me.
35:11Dogs bite because they're scared. They don't bite because they're aggressive. And people do too. You want it out. O
35:17-U-D.
35:18When Holyfield stood up to the bully and chopped him down, he became part of the American legend.
35:25Holyfield showed us that monsters do not exist. They are figments of children's imagination.
35:33And if you face something with a righteousness, with a worth, with a preparedness, then you can do almost anything.
35:49I think Evander's legacy will be that he was one of the toughest warriors in the ring who tarnished a
35:59great achievement of rising from a light heavyweight, cruiserweight, to a heavyweight champion of the world by overstaying his welcome.
36:08The idea of losing is completely foreign to him. And toward the end of his career, I think, served him
36:17very poorly.
36:18He's told a number of people, I believe God's plan for me is to finish better than I started, to
36:25finish as the undisputed heavyweight champ of the world.
36:27In 1999, Evander Holyfield had two opportunities to reach his goal of unifying the heavyweight titles. But he failed in
36:35both attempts against WBC champion Lennox Lewis.
36:39Lennox Lewis II, he fought his heart out that night. He might have left his last touch of that level
36:51of fighting in the ring that night.
36:56As Holyfield continued to box, his ring skills began to fade. In October of 2003, two weeks before his 41st
37:04birthday, he met James Toney, a former cruiserweight who was making his heavyweight debut.
37:10That's kind of signaled the end of it. James Toney knocked him out.
37:15Vander Holyfield, as a fighter, he didn't have the same snap on his punches. He didn't have the reflexes to
37:21block punches.
37:21I told him, you're getting hit with too many right hands. If you don't get out of the way of
37:29those right hands, I'm gonna stop the fight. First punch to Tony, bam, right hand.
37:36I think they fought in the town. Don Turner fought in the town, and it's over.
37:43I think Don Turner did him one of the greatest favors a man could do, a fighter, by stopping that
37:49fight with James Toney. Yet, in Evander's eyes, that was almost a betrayal.
37:56After the Tony fight, I told Evander that my opinion was that the best thing for him to do would
38:04be retired because, in my view, he was on top.
38:08Evander is not to be denied. You know, in his mind, he can still be the fighter he was in
38:131990, and, you know, he's not gonna let a trainer or an advisor or somebody in his camp stand between
38:19that.
38:29Holyfield hired a new trainer, and 13 months later, he met journeyman Larry Donald, who pounded him as easily as
38:35he would the heavy bag, dealing the former champion more than three punches for every one received.
38:40Holyfield was placed on medical suspension by the New York State Athletic Commission and barred from fighting in the United
38:46States.
38:47You could see him thinking about punching, but the thought wasn't being delivered from his mind to his hands.
38:55If we allowed him to continue fighting, he was going to be one of these guys that was gonna suffer
39:02from pugilistic dementia.
39:04And if we didn't protect him, he didn't want to protect himself.
39:09This was just another case of someone doubting, someone disrespecting him.
39:13And when these episodes occur, it's Evander's style to say, well, I'm gonna prove everyone wrong.
39:25Holyfield pressed to be allowed back into the ring.
39:28After passing a series of medical tests, the national suspension was changed to abandon the state of New York.
39:34In the summer of 2006, Holyfield, despite just two wins in his last nine fights, got a license to fight
39:40in Texas.
39:41At 43, he refused to retire.
39:45He still...
39:46Yeah, you should have hung it up after Tony.
39:50...remembers the lesson his mother taught him and his promise to her to finish on top.
39:55When people say, ah, you're too old, you ain't got no youth, this, this, this.
40:00Like with 2 Corinthians 5, 7, I walk by faith, not by sight.
40:05Meaning that if I walk by sight, you know, it will make me give up.
40:10But faith is evidence that things are not seen.
40:13Because the word of God says, I can be.
40:16The Hebrew chapter of the world again.
40:21It's not gonna happen.
40:22You're slurring a little now.
40:27Step away.
40:28Have respect and dignity for yourself.
40:31Don't damage yourself any more than what you have.
40:34He doesn't know when to quit.
40:35He doesn't even understand what the word quit means.
40:39So all of these competitive juicers that made him great, now make him potentially a tragic figure.
40:47He still has a goal.
40:48People want him to live in the past.
40:52But he still has a future.
40:54He's not 60 years old.
40:56He's not ready to retire.
40:58You know, God has given him strength, courage, knowledge.
41:01And that's what he's using to continue his life.
41:11However his career ends, Evander Holyfield has established himself as a highly skilled fighter who displayed courage, perseverance, and grace
41:19in a sport in search of those attributes.
41:22What kind of career would have been if nothing ever happened to me, and everything's just dandy like that? Who
41:30can you really inspire?
41:32Can you think of a fighter who was more underappreciated and underestimated than Evander Holyfield?
41:37I mean, Holyfield did what all of us thought was impossible.
41:43He became heavyweight champion.
41:45Not once, not twice, not three times, but four times.
41:51His story is a great story.
41:53It's a wonderful story.
41:55And it's a story that any kid who is of lesser means, but who has a dream, should hear and
42:03understand that they too can live their dream if they have the same kind of character, attitude, and perseverance that
42:11Evander Holyfield had.
42:12And that's right.
42:16And that's right.
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