Tyson Holyfield I (1996) was fought under unique circumstances. Tyson had been out of prison for his rape conviction for about one year.  Since that time, he had four easy knockouts.  This is not to say his opponents were slouches, but for Tyson it was smooth-sailing. His opponents included the eccentric Peter McNeely, Buster Mathis, Frank Bruno, and Bruce Seldon.  Because Tyson wiped the floor with these guys, he got back into his invincibility mindset which had gotten him in trouble with his first loss to Buster Douglas in 1990. 

Tyson vs. Holyfield I 

In the first Tyson-Holyfield fight, Tyson obviously hadn’t trained hard enough. He looked visibly less chiseled than usual. In the later rounds, he was clearly gassed. If he had trained harder, he would have had more pep, in which case he could have avoided the TKO loss in the 11th round. Also, Tyson was using recreational drugs such as marijuana and cocaine throughout his career, and that was starting to take its toll around this time. 

Holyfield, on the other hand, trained like a madman for his fight against Tyson. 

Tyson recounts feeling good in the first couple rounds, but then felt as though he had “blacked out,” which he later realized was due to the headbutts. Tyson gives a poignant description of the 10th round, shortly before the TKO: 

“In the tenth round, he connected with twenty-three power punches, and I never felt a thing, I only heard the sound of them whooshing around my head.” (324)

After the TKO, Tyson was so out of it from the punishing fight that he asked his corner if he had won. They would have to break the news to the champion, who realized that the gods of boxing had abandoned him. 

Tyson had assumed that Holyfield would be weak in that first fight, in part based on Holyfield’s fight against Bobby Czyz. Czyz  was obviously not a real heavyweight, and he’s a white guy, which added to the perception (although biased) that Holyfield should have quickly knocked him out. Instead, Czyz basically stood his ground against Holyfield until the fight was stopped due to Czyz claiming that his eyes were burning. Based on this performance, Tyson didn’t take Holyfield too seriously. 

Holyfield Steroid Allegations

Another factor in both fights is Holyfield’s alleged use of steroids. It’s not necessarily a scurrilous accusation.  For one thing, to contrast Holyfield’s body before and after the late eighties to early nineties is striking. Literally his head got bigger, his face got bigger, and of course his muscles got a lot bigger. He looked like a different person. Cranium growth is a sign of steroids. 

Here’s how Tyson puts it in his autobiography: 

“If you watched a tape of the fight you’d see that Holyfield was clearly fighting a dirty fight, but he had the good guy image. He was the one who strolled to the ring singing gospel songs. It didn’t make huge headlines when he was later implicated in a steroid ring out of Mobile, Alabama.”  (332)

Tyson also quotes someone in his camp making reference to the steroid allegation against Holyfield: 

“...Croc was convinced that Holyfield had been using steroids. One of the guys in his camp, Lee Haney, was a former Mr. Olympiad and a suspected steroid guy. He said that Holyfield seemed normal at the weigh-in but when he entered the ring he looked like Goliath.” (325)

The NY Post reported on a steroid lab with Holyfield on speed-dial in 2007. An investigation suggested that Holyfield may have used an alias to purchase steroids:

...a patient of a Mobile, Ala., lab by the name of “Evan Fields” raised some suspicion among investigators. The so-called “Fields” shares the same birth date as Holyfield, has a similar address, and when reporters called the phone number associated with those prescriptions, Holyfield answered.

That’s a lot of circumstantial evidence to suggest that Holyfield may have used illicit substances to enhance his physique; especially when considered along with the dramatic physical changes Holyfield underwent from the eighties to the nineties. He practically looked like a different person.

Headbutting

According to Tyson, Holyfield was headbutting him in both fights. Tyson was at this point an experienced fighter, and he was not known to make excuses, so one could take his claim at face value. On the other hand, there isn’t any footage which shows Holyfield blatantly headbutting Tyson, and in fact in at least one instance, they butt heads in a way in which Tyson is as much at fault as Holyfield. 

That said, the headbutting, whatever the cause, was definitely an issue insofar as it opened up a cut over Tyson’s left eye.  However, the real culprit in the first fight was the lack of training and subsequent fatigue from Tyson. Comparing Tyson’s quick and spirited movement in the first round to the latter rounds, he clearly lost steam and lost his mojo. 

The Rematch

Tyson started training for his rematch against Holyfield the very next night after his loss. That is inspiring and shows at least a promise of redemption, which was unfortunately never fulfilled. 

Indeed, in the ill-fated rematch (1997), Tyson looked much better conditioned. As the opening round began, Tyson looked quick and hungry. However, once a headbutt opened up that same cut, he was driven to madness, and the rest is history. 

Tyson appealed to referee Mills Lane, who considered it an accidental headbutt. Obviously, it would have been much more sportsmanlike had Tyson bowed out of the fight due to the cut from the headbutt.  Tyson considered Mills Lane to be biased against him, but there isn’t much that Lane could have done to help him in this situation either. Lane wanted to disqualify Tyson after the first bite, which is fair enough. When Lane was overruled by the Las Vegas boxing commissioner, he quickly acquiesced at let the fight continue, deducting points from Tyson. But when Tyson bit Holyfield’s ear again, Lane did not hesitate to stop the fight. 

Unfortunately, Tyson’s legacy has been marred by biting Holyfield’s ear. If you watch the fight, there are two things at issue: 1. Tyson was fighting pretty well.  Better than the first fight. He easily could have won if he stuck in there.  2. If the cut on Tyson’s eye from Holyfield’s headbutts would continue to bleed so profusely, they could have stopped the fight before the end of the 4th round and declared a draw, which obviously would have been more honorable than the ear bite. But sadly, this ear biting moment has become another stupid moment in pop culture history. 

Once Tyson was disqualified, pandemonium ensued. The ring was filled with cops and security fighting Tyson back, as he swung at anyone in front of him. Tyson later told a reporter outside his locker room that he was ready to fight Holyfield right now. But the time to fight him was in the ring. This bravado after the fact, therefore, falls flat.  

This is similar to his Lennon Lewis fight in that he attempted to fight Lewis in the presser before the fight, but in the actual bout all that intensity was gone. The bluster out of the ring, then, was compensation for what was lacking in his professional bouts in the late stage of Tyson’s career. Ultimately, this trash talking before the Lewis fight and his lashing out at the end of the second Holyfield fight became farcical, given that the sport itself provided the forum to settle who was the tougher, more aggressive fighter. If Tyson wanted to fight Holyfield “right now,” it would seem he had the opportunity to do so before getting himself disqualified. As a side note, the Tyson- Lewis fight was even less competitive than the Tyson-Holyfield fight: In the Lewis fight Tyson didn’t even have a pretext for losing, he simply admitted that Lewis fought the better fight.  

In his autobiography, Tyson recalls saying of the ear-biting when he got home to his family, “I shouldn’t have done that,” and, “My fans are going to hate me.”  But elsewhere he is less contrite, claiming that Holyfield’s headbutts were the main problem.

The sad part is that Tyson looked better in the second fight, that cut above his eye notwithstanding. But no one was going to hold the cut against him.  Again, if it opened up too much, they would have had to stop the fight as a no-contest.  That would have been no one’s fault, besides perhaps Holyfield, if in fact the headbutts were intentional, as Tyson believes they were. 

A Sad Ending To Tyson’s Career 

At this point in his career, Tyson didn’t really have the stuff to beat a top competitor such as Holyfield or Lennox Lewis, though he could still quickly dispatch the second tier talent. In fact, after his loss to Lewis in 2002, Tyson was so drug addled and unmotivated that he started to get beat up by second tier talent. After his loss to Kevin McBride in 2005, Tyson decided to call it quits, admitting he didn’t have the heart for the sport any longer. 

Some sports commentators thought that Tyson’s belligerent fighting style was not well suited for a long career. In my view, it was instead Tyson’s use of drugs such as pot and coke, along with his lackadaisical training, which led to the disappointing part of his career in the late nineties to the 2000s.  

Works Cited 

Costello, Brian. “REPORT: HOLYFIELD USED ALIAS TO BUY STEROIDS.” NY Post, Mar 2, 2007.

Tyson, Mike. Undisputed Truth. NY: Penguin Group, 2013. 

Follow Michael Machera Blog on Facebook , Twitter and YouTube.

Comment below: