17.03.04 – By Andrew Mullinder -Looking back, it seems as though the late nineties’ ominously degenerating Heavyweight scene was defined less by the fights than the shocking episodes surrounding them: from Fan Man to Andrew Galota’s low blows; from the scandalous Holyfield-Lewis decision to Oliver Mcall’s in-fight nervous breakdown, we saw it all as boxing’s flagship division came close to collapsing into a grotesque circus. But the granddaddy of them all, the Lean Mean Fat-Free Grilling Machine Champion Calamity of the most farcical era in boxing, revolved around the self proclaimed ,‘baddest man on the planet’ and a couple of small chunks from Evander Holyfield’s ears. In the late eighties the savage irresistibility of Mike Tyson’s boxing obsessed journalists. Ten years later it was ring savagery drawn from a less refined rule book which had boxing on the front page of just abut every newspaper in the world.
Considering his vast money making potential, Tyson’s punishment was always more likely to be founded on expediency than morality. However, in the days after 28th June 1997 your sanity would have been called into serious question if your had even so much as politely enquired about the possibility of a third encounter. First, such a fight seemed completely superfluous while Holyfield clearly had Tyson’s number (or could at least easily control the ‘Tyson-Lite’ version of Iron Mike who had been fighting since 1990).
However, when considering the possibility of any future meeting between the two, the most pervasive issue had to be that of how Tyson – volatile at the best of times – would react to the rough housing and often illegal tactics he would inevitably face during a third encounter with Holyfield. The only sensible answer to this question in the days after his second, fateful Las Vegas encounter with Holyfield was that he couldn’t react in anything like an acceptable way. For Tyson, it obviously wasn’t enough to put a couple in low to show two could play at that game, he had to try and break your arm; he couldn’t just lead with his own head to even the score, he had to bite off your ear.
Yet here we are, 6 years on, and the rumours have started, the wheels are turning, and Don King’s eyes are lighting up. Holyfield’s credibility is so shot he can’t get a fight with any of the alphabet champs or even a top contender, but he refuses to become the gatekeeper to the Heavyweight division. Tyson is bankrupt (these days financially as well as morally) and needs a winnable big money fight. And where do these circumstances leave our protagonists? You’ve guessed it: like Dick Dastardly and Mutley, so estranged from the others that once again they reluctantly (but inevitably) end up with each other.
No doubt, if a third meeting were ever to take place, much of the pre fight argument and debate would centre on the question of whether Holyfield should be allowed to fight at all – and understandably so. No matter how skilful James Toney’s performance was, nobody who witnessed his recent fight with Holyfield can have taken any pleasure in watching a blown up Light Heavyweight transform the onetime ‘Real Deal’ into a decrepit vehicle for solipsistic delusion. Nobody who watched that wretched performance would revel in the thought that Evander may fight again. Despite this, Holyfield, in the absence of any medical evidence to suggest otherwise, has an absolute right to pursue his chosen career without the ridicule and patronising ‘advice’ he has already been forced to endure.
It is not difficult to have sympathy with those who have been truculently calling for Evander’s retirement from boxing. The naturally unpleasant process of watching a great fighter box so far beyond his peak that he is beaten by men who he would have brushed aside earlier in his career, is magnified in Holyfield’s case by serious health worries whenever you remember the amount of terrifying wars he has been involved in. It is clear to most observers, when assesing Holyfield’s last eight or ten fights, that if he believes he still has the tools to operate at the highest level then he is in the midst of a dangerous fantasy. In these circumstances it is obvious, and some would say compassionate, to argue that ‘Holyfield should be protected from himself’. However, I feel closer and less emotive examination of his situation shows that this line of argument is at best misplaced.
First, it seems clear, from the open letter Evander wrote after the criticism of his declaration to fight on reached fever pitch, that he has not made a snap decision in the way certain writers have claimed. He has stated in no uncertain terms that the decision was made only after extensive consultation with advisors and loved ones, and after carefully listening to both sides of the argument. More importantly, he has pointed out that he is probably the most tested upon boxer in history and recent tests have showed he is at no greater risk of injury by boxing on.
Second, the often mentioned hypothesis that Holyfield is, ‘damaging his legacy’ by fighting on seems to me absurd. Holyfield’s pursuit of glory beyond the limitations of his aging body is a well trodden path in the world of professional boxing and realistically everybody sees Evander as the shadow of his former self he is. Within this context it is difficult to understand how further defeats would be detrimental to his standing in the pantheon of boxers. Ali’s and Frazier’s early eighties defeats, to Trevor Berbick and Jumbo Cummings respectively, did not tarnish their sixties and seventies achievements and did not affect their all time rankings, so why should Holyfield’s recent performances affect his?
However, whether Holyfield was going to damage his legacy by fighting on, or indeed had made a snap decision to fight on, is really a redundant question because it is his legacy to damage and his decision to make. Boxing’s most persuasive self justification is that all combatants exercise free will as they climb through the ropes, they choose to fight. The version of Holyfield who fights today is by no means the worst heavyweight to don gloves – hundreds of men box professionally every week with little or no chance of victory. If you defend the right of these men to fight, and indeed defended Holyfield’s right to fight ten years ago, then in the absence of any clear medical evidence you must, by very definition, defend his right to box now, no matter how much his ability has deteriorated.
I admit that it is always Holyfield’s shocking deterioration which will win more hearts than logical argument, but telling such a proud man he needs to be protected from himself is at the very least patronising. In this situation we can only trust that Evander made the decision to fight on in the measured, logical fashion which he described, hope he will not live to regret it and when trying to understand his decision to fight on, remember something Hugh McIlvanney (arguably the finest boxing writer of the last fifty years) wrote concerning the personality of boxers:
“Most boxers are well worth knowing. They are like men who have been to war. Maybe we should not have prize fights, but those who have been involved in either have an extra dimension of experience. They have been to a frontier we can only know vicariously.”
Unfortunately, Tyson is the exception that proves McIlvanney’s rule. I accept that there are many ex-convicts currently under licence to box and I admit that the fight game has more than its fair share of unsavoury characters. But surely nobody quite defiles the name of boxing quite as effectively as Tyson; and certainly nobody manages to get close to the spectacular manner in which Tyson brings the hardest game into disrepute. I can only hope that it will not take many more ear biting incidents or soliloquies about his erectile (dis)functions to make people realise that Iron Mike is not ‘well worth knowing’. Tyson may come from a difficult background and he may have naively fallen into Don King’s sphere of influence, but is about time we all realised that at 37 years old he is as responsible for his actions as you or I. Perhaps someone could then take responsibility for removing him from the sport. I find the thought of sitting through many more Tyson pre-fight interviews abhorrent, and am genuinely frightened by what he may do when Holyfield inevitably wheels out some of his more dubious tactics. Mike Tyson needs to be spending about 40 hours a week in a room with a psychiatrist, not 40 minutes in a ring with Evander Holyfield. Boxing is not the place to find the help he clearly needs