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Sixteen years after the fact, this one rewrote history for me. Evander Holyfield on the Night Before Fighting MikeTyson It’s part of boxing lore. On November 9, 1996, Evander Holyfield shocked the world by knocking out Mike Tyson. Holyfield, it was said, went into the fight with absolute confidence and total belief in himself. “Tyson might frighten you guys,” he told the media.“But he doesn’t scare me. I’ve been everywhere he has except prison.” Except it turns out that things weren’t that simple. On June 8, 2012, I was sitting with Evander when Manny Pacquiao andTim Bradley weighed in for their welterweight championship fight at the MGM Grand in LasVegas. Pacquiao tipped the scales at 147 pounds, Bradley at 146.When it was time for the ritual staredown,Tim moved into Manny’s space and postured aggressively. Throughout fight week, Bradley had carried himself with an aura of confidence. Pacquiao, on the other hand, had seemed a bit somber.Thus, I was surprised when Evander said to me, “I think Pacquiao is more confident.” “Why do you say that?” “Tim feels good right now,” Holyfield answered. “But the night before a fight, when you’re lying in bed and can’t sleep, things change.” “Did you have trouble sleeping before a fight?” Evander smiled. “The night before I foughtTyson the first time was the worst.” Jack Dempsey famously said,“Fighters know fear. It’s like a lump in your chest.You learn how to live with it.You don’t talk about it and you try not to show it. But it’s there.” This is what Evander told me about his state of mind before he fought MikeTyson. * * * 108 THOMAS HAUSER No matter how much you believe in yourself, there’s always some doubt.The night beforeTyson, with all the talk I’d heard about how great he was and how there was no way I could possibly beat him, I must have got out of bed a hundred times. I shadow-boxed. I read the Bible. I went back to bed. I couldn’t sleep. I got up again. Read the Bible some more. Shadow-boxed again.A lot of thoughts were going through my mind.The hardest fight I’d ever had was against Dwight Qawi.Fifteen rounds.I remember Qawi telling me during the fight,“They sent a baby to do a man’s job.”There was a time in that fight when all I wanted was to not get knocked out and make it to the end. I won but it took everything out of me. Tyson was bigger than Qawi.Tyson was stronger than Qawi. He hit harder than Qawi.At the Olympic trials, I was a light-heavyweight and Tyson was a heavyweight. He was the only guy there who worked harder than me. All I got was two, maybe three, hours of sleep, the night before I foughtTyson.The second time we fought, it was better.The whole day of the first fight, I was tired. I had a headache. I felt nauseous.Anybody can win if they don’t get hit, but I knew I was gonna get hit. I said to myself that day,“This will tell me who I am.Winners make it happen. Losers let it happen. I can’t hope Tyson gets tired. I have to make him get tired. I have to show him, If you hit me, I’m gonna hit you back harder.” Fear stops you from doing what you have to do to win. Confidence is the key to being the best. It’s how you feel about yourself that matters. The worst mistake I ever made in boxing was telling Lennox Lewis that I was going to knock him out in the third round the first time we fought. Because when he got through the third round, his confidence level went up to the sky. Walking to the ring for Tyson, I told myself,“It’s time to perform.” When I got in the ring, my legs felt weak. Like they were Jell-O. I was smiling, but it was an act.You can’t stand there with your head down. You’ve got to make it look like,“Hey; no problem.” I believed in myself. But I still had to make it happen, and I knew thatTyson wanted to make it happen differently. Then the bell rang...

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