The Boxing Scene

Evander Holyfield and the Impossible Dream

As 2007 began, the ice that Evander Holyfield was skating on seemed dangerously close to cracking. Evander Holyfield and the Impossible Dream B oxing isn’t like other sports. When aging players in other professional athletic endeavors can’t perform anymore, the system forces them out. In boxing, there’s always money to be made off an aging fighter; either as an opponent to pad a young prospect’s record or as a “name” that sells tickets and engenders pay-per-view buys. Evander Holyfield is an aging fighter. He’s forty-four years old and has amassed a professional record of forty wins against eight losses and two draws over twenty-two years. “I’ve had a lot of good things happen to me in my career,” he says. “Making the United States Olympic team [in 1984] was my greatest moment. Beating Buster Douglas [in 1990] to become undisputed heavyweight champion of the world for the first time was a high point. And knocking out Mike Tyson [in 1996] is up there with those two.” Then Holyfield utters the words that have become the mantra of his fistic faith: “But the best is yet to come. I’m not going to retire until I’m the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world again.” Reality would seem to dictate otherwise. In the past six years, Holy- field has won just three fights. In 2004, he fought a journeyman boxer named Larry Donald at Madison Square Garden and lost eleven of twelve rounds. He was so outclassed that the New York State Athletic Commission put him on indefinite medical suspension for what it called “poor performance” and “diminished skills.” Evander subsequently passed a series of medical tests, at which point the commission removed him from its medical suspension list and placed him on administrative suspension. He has fought twice since then, both times in Texas, winning , but looking his age. Is Holyfield’s pursuit of the heavyweight championship a noble quest, or is he the victim of delusional self-indulgence? Is his impossible dream within reach; or is he like Sisyphus, the Corinthian King of Greek mythology, condemned to roll a large boulder up a hill for eternity? Given the myriad world-sanctioning organizations and competing promotional interests that rule boxing today, it would be hard for anyone, let alone a forty-four-year-old man, to unify the heavyweight crown. But that doesn’t keep Holyfield from saying, “In boxing, it’s all or nothing. You’re either on top or you’re just one of the guys in line trying to get there. I plan on getting to the top again. I’d like my next fight to be a championship fight. But if that’s not available to me, I’ll take a non-title fight to stay busy and keep my reflexes sharp. If I had a choice, I’d rather that someone else unify the titles and then fight me. One shot, one win, and I could retire as undisputed heavyweight champion of the world. But I’ll fight them all one at a time if I have to. The only way they can keep me from achieving my goal is to not let me participate .” What sort of man is driven like this? Emanuel Steward, who trained Holyfield for two fights in 1993 (including his winning effort against Riddick Bowe), offers the first clue: “People who don’t know Evander think he’s a humble guy,” Steward says. “But I’ve never met anyone with an ego like his. Evander is very nice and very polite, but his ego drives him. He loves being the center of attention as much as anyone I know. It might not seem that way, but he loves the spotlight.” Holyfield also loves a challenge. During his career, he has fought twentyone fights against fourteen men who have held a version of the heavyweight crown. “I fight people who fight back,” he says. “My whole career, I’ve fought people when they were at their best. You can’t prove anything to me by doing it to someone else. You got to do it to me. And I don’t look to beat somebody because he makes mistakes. I want to be better.” Holyfield is particularly fond of the challenge inherent in taking on bullies . “Evander was obsessed with beating Mike Tyson,” says Steward, “because Tyson was a bully...