Becoming Holyfield by Evander Holyfield

Author:Evander Holyfield
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria Books
Published: 2008-09-01T04:00:00+00:00

I wanted to fight Mike, but there was a situation underway that was making it difficult to set up a match. To explain it I have to touch on the business side of the boxing world, and that world is so bizarre there’s almost no way to keep this simple, but I’ll try. Just bear in mind that the whole story is about eight times more complicated than I’m going to make it sound.

Part of the problem is that the three major governing bodies—the WBA, WBC and IBF—all have different rules, as do the boxing or athletic commissions of all fifty states, and sometimes those rules are in conflict with one another. In this case, we were mostly concerned with the WBC, the World Boxing Council.

Every champion is obligated to defend his title within a certain amount of time. You generally have a year to face the number-one-rated contender, but for your first defense you can fight anybody in the top ten. After I beat Buster Douglas at the end of 1990 and won all three titles, Lou Duva set up a fight against George Foreman. George wasn’t the number-one contender—Tyson was—but he was tremendously popular. The promoters thought there’d be so much money in a bout between the two of us that they offered me $20 million for the fight, the biggest payday in boxing history. If I won, which Lou was sure I would, I’d probably get even more to fight Tyson a few months later. He set the Foreman fight up for April 1991, and everything was looking rosy. I should have known better.

Since losing his world crown, Mike had fought four matches, won them all, and was ready to get his titles back. Looking around at the field, I guess he and Don King thought that Mike now had a better chance against me than against any of the other contenders. If I lost to one of those other guys in the coming months, Mike would have to fight him instead of me, and King wasn’t willing to take that chance. So they wanted to fight me before I fought anyone else. Problem was, I was set up to face Foreman.

As badly as I wanted to go up against Mike, it didn’t make any sense to do it as the very first defense of my new title. I was going to be paid a fortune for fighting Foreman, would probably beat him, and would then still be able to fight Mike. But if I fought Mike first, that would be a tougher match, and if I lost and never got the shot at Foreman, I’d be out $20 million. To me it was simple arithmetic, and a few extra months before fighting Mike was no big deal.

Don didn’t see it that way. And when Don King doesn’t see something “that way,” he doesn’t just sit around. He, Mike and the WBC filed a lawsuit against me and everyone on my team to stop the Foreman fight.

You need a reason to file a lawsuit other than your own self-interest.

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