It is always a pleasure to watch a prize fight with fans that enjoy the sweet science as much as you do. Most of the time, when somebody is as crazy as I am and devote so much time to the sport where two grown men in satin shorts fight for a purse, you end up being the in-house “expert” of the bunch and are relegated to question after question about the random idiosyncracies of the fighters, corners, judges and referee. When you watch the fight with people who are as insane as you, then you discuss footwork, combination and the random idiosyncracies of the fighters, corners, judges and referee.
A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of watching Tijuana’s Juan Carlos Burgos stop late sub Juan Carlos Martinez in Laredo, TX, on ESPN’s Friday Night Fights with Tijuana boxing commissioner Benjamin Rendon and his daughter, 2008 Tijuana judge of the Year Monique, among others. During the twelve rounds we discussed Tijuana boxing politics, how slow the bout moved and eventually how exciting the end was. Soon there after, we watched classic footage of one of Tijuana’s first boxing stars, Gaspar “Indio” Ortega. As a good bye at the end of the night, Mr. Rendon was generous enough to present me a copy of former heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield’s autobiography Becoming Holyfield by Evander himself with Lee Gruenfield. Mr. Rendon was genuinely impressed by Holyfield and he highly recommended the book.
In it Holyfield tells his tale of how the Boys and Girls Club of America changed the course of his life when a young Evander met coach Carson Morgan who not only thaught him how to fight but in a sense, coupled with his strict, religous mother, thaught him how to live and succeed not only in boxing but in life as well.
Before joining the pro ranks, Holyfield amassed a highly decorated amateur career capped off with a bronze medal in the 1984 Olympics after being on the short end of a controversial disqualification against Kevin Barry of New Zealand. Holyfield went pro the same year as a light heavyweight and by 1988 he was the first undisputed cruiserweight champion.
Two years later he was crowned the undisputed heavyweight champion and went on to win the pieces of the crown three more times becoming the only heavyweight to be champion four different times.
Through out his career the “Real Deal” was embroiled in controversy such as the “fan man” incident where a man parachuted into the ring as he fought Riddick Bowe in 1993. After knocking out Mike Tyson in their first fight, Holyfield won their rematch when Tyson bit part of his ear off in 1997.
Holyfield does a convincing job of putting you inside the ring as well as inside his head for the majority of his fights but with a man that has ammassed 54 professional fights with a record of 42-10-2, 27KO, he skims over many of them.
Holyfield also goes into his personal life and the many children that he had in and out of wedlock as well as the heart condition that forced him to retire for a couple of years.
One of the criticisms I have of the book is that Holyfield never mentions the allegations that steroids were ordered to his address under an alleged name.
Holyfield is now 47-years-old and has dropped his last two fights, both title fights. The first against Sultan Ibragimov in 2007 and the last against Nikolay Valuev in December of 2008. Holyfield promises that as long as he feels physically and mentally able to fight, he will pursue his dream to become the undisputed heavyweight champion in the world once again despite many calling for his retirement and he makes his case for it in the last third of the book.
Before reading Becoming Holyfield, I had not really followed Evander’s career. I did not know some of the achievements that he had earned during his stellar career. Fighting in the shadow of Mike Tyson, I found his personality to passive to irk my interest. I am not sure that after reading it, I would follow it but I do have to admit it was an easy, breezy read.
According to BoxRec.com, Holyfield is scheduled to fight on April 24th against the ever dangerous TBA.
I might or might not tune in…