Holyfield’s Boxing Career
Born on October 19, 1962, Evan Holyfield was an American sports star known in the field of boxing from the years 1984 to 2014. He was an undisputed cruiserweightchampion that reigned in the late 1980s. Furthermore, he remained champion until the 1990s but time under the heavyweight class. He was the only undisputed champion in the historywho had been classified under two weight classes.
Aside from obtaining the title of being an undisputed champion, Holyfield was also known as ‘The Real Deal.’ He was a four-time heavyweight champion who held the unified World Boxing Association (WBA), World Boxing Council (WBC), and International Boxing Federation (IFB) titles from the years 1993 to 1994. If you find boxing so interesting, I bet you will also love the hype of playing in online casinos.
Prior to being a professional boxer, Holyfield had represented the United States in the 1984 Summer Olympics as an amateur. In there, he had won a bronze medal in the lightweight division. Following that, at the age of 21, Holyfield had moved up to a cruiserweight class. In 1985, a year after he had moved up to cruiserweight, he had won a WBA title after battling against Dwight Muhammad Qawi on a world championship.
Before the year 1988, Holyfield had then won a WBC and IBF titles when he had defeated Rickey Parkey and Carlos de Leon. He then became an undisputed cruiserweight champion, before eventually moving up to the heavyweight class in 1998. Later on, he had a winning match against the professional boxer, James Buster Douglas. In there, he had obtained a unified WBA, IBF, and WBC heavyweight titles in 1990. He also became the undisputed heavyweight champion.
Subsequently, in 1992, Holyfield had successfully defended his titles after defeating Larry Holmes and George Foreman. However, he had faced his first professional loss when he fought against Riddick Bowe in the same year. A year later, the two have re-matched. Holyfield regained his title and had obtained another WBA and IBF title for defeating Riddick Bowe. Once again, in the year 1994, he losses these titles after a match with Michael Moorer.
Later in the same year, Holyfield was forced to retire upon medical advice. Nevertheless, he returned the following year. Two years after his forced retirement, Holyfield had defeated Mike Tyson, which gained him the WBA title he had lost with Moorer. In a 1997 re-match with Tyson, Holyfield won after Tyson was disqualified for ear-biting during the round three of the match. A re-match was also held between Moorer and Holyfield, which had regained the latter his IBF title.
Furthermore, in 1999, a fight for the undisputed WBA, IBF, and WBC title was concluded between Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield. The fight was a controversial one since the result was a split withdrawal. Consequently, in a re-match eight months later, Holyfield was defeated.
He then fought in the following year and faced John Ruiz for a WBA title. During his career, Holyfield had acquired the title of the first boxer to won a heavyweight title four times. However, in a re-match with Ruiz, Holyfield was defeated. He didn’t give his title up and fought again with Ruiz for the third match. In 2014, Holyfield retired from boxing, although he becomes a boxing advisor of the Chinese boxer, Zhang Zhilei.
In 2002, he was the 22nd among the greatest fighter of the past eighty years. Also, during his retirement, Holyfield was deemed as the 77th among The Ring’s 100 greatest punchers. Aside from that, in a BoxRec’s ranking for the greatest pound for pound boxers of all time, he was ranked in no.9.
Allegations and Bankruptcy
Seven years before his retirement, Holyfield was accused of being anonymously linked to the Applied Pharmacy Services. According to the report, Holyfield was being supplied with illegal steroids. During that time, he had denied that he had ever used the steroid as a performance enhancer. Although his name did not appear when the law enforcers had reviewed the documents, further investigations say otherwise. In an investigation conducted back then, law enforcers had found out a man named Evan Fields. This man had shared the same birthdate, cellphone number, and address with Evander Holyfield. Subsequently, Holyfield then made a public announcement that he will pursue his own investigation to clear his name.
A year after the allegation, Washington Mutual Bank had placed a legal notice stating that his 54,000 meters square-foot estate would be auctioned due to foreclosure. In addition to his financial problems, the mother of his 10-years old child, Tol Irving, had filed a suit for not paying his two-month child support. Piling to his financial debts, the Utah Landscaping Firm had also pursued Holyfield’s unpaid debt for their services. Due to these unfortunate events, as well as his frivolous spending, his fortunes eventually drained.
From his previous $350 million earning, it goes down to $1.2 million a year, which he gets mostly for personal appearances.