Becoming Holyfield (5 page)

B
y 1983, I'd compiled an amateur record of 160 wins and 14 losses, with 75 of my wins coming by way of knockout. That's an awful lot of knockouts in a three-round sport where wins usually come on points, yet few people outside Atlanta had even heard of me. (Just so you know: When compiling a fighter's statistics, technical knockouts are counted the same as knockouts.)

Part of the problem was that I'd graduated high school weighing 147 pounds. and had kept growing steadily afterward. That meant I was forever changing weight divisions. So as soon as I began making my mark as a welterweight, I shifted up to junior middleweight and started all over again. At just about the time I made it to the top of that division, I became a middleweight. All of that jumping around made it difficult to establish a reputation. Atlanta at that time was not known as a breeding ground for boxers, so there wasn't enough public interest for anybody to keep track of somebody like me.

But there was a lot of interest among people who were in the sport. The governing organization for amateur boxing in the United States is the USA Amateur Boxing Federation, which is part of the U.S. Olympic Committee, and luckily for me the president, Loring Baker, and two of its referees were from Georgia. With an added assist from Buddy and Bo Davis of the Georgia Amateur Boxing Association, they tried to get me a slot in a series of matches against Cuba. The Davises had known me since I was eight and thought that if they could just get the U.S. national officials to have a look at me, they'd give me a shot. That's the kind of dedicated people they are. Buddy is still the president of GABA today and has been for about forty years, and he and Bo have devoted their entire lives to the sport of boxing. GABA was to be one of the first organizations I started supporting financially after I turned pro, and I still do.

The plan worked. Even though I lost by decision in a tough, close bout, I made enough of an impression on the U.S. officials, including U.S. boxing team coaches Roosevelt Sanders and Pat Nappy, to get myself invited to train for a tryout for the Pan-American Games. The trials were held as part of Sports Festival in Colorado Springs.

My first two opponents at the trials had beaten me before, but this time I beat them both. It wasn't easy, though; the fights were long and grueling and took a lot out of me, and then I had to go back into the ring the next day to face Rickey Womack.

There's no hard evidence, just a feeling on my part and some other people's, but there's a case to be made that U.S. boxing officials were anxious to have someone other than Rickey Womack represent America in the Olympic light heavyweight division. They were afraid he'd end up embarrassing the whole country. Despite his success in the ring, Womack was a deeply troubled man: emotional, volatile, and occasionally displaying signs of even more serious mental difficulties. He had a physically abusive father who was once accused of murdering Rickey's two-year-old brother. After social services took Rickey and his seven brothers and sisters away from his mother, Rickey went into foster care. He started boxing at the age of thirteen at the fabled Kronk Gym, which was run by Emanuel Steward, one of the all-time great trainers. Four years later he was convicted of armed robbery, and when he got out in 1981, Steward and his wife took him into their own home and treated him like a son while he trained at Kronk.

Despite the Stewards' love and attention, Rickey couldn't seem to break out of his old ways. Kronk boxers began reporting missing items after his return from prison, and when the team went to Tokyo for a tournament, Rickey stole a watch from a store while the manager was watching him. Mark Breland was with him at the time, and was detained until Steward managed to get him released.

When the Pan-Am trials came around, Rickey was the number-one-ranked amateur in the country and the odds-on favorite to go to the Olympic Games. He was tough, street-hardened and very experienced and was being handled by a professional team including one of the best trainers in the business, while I was basically a nobody from a nothing gym and my trainer hadn't even come with me.

I beat him anyway, which nobody expected, but because of the way the trials were set up, all that did was get us into a box-off a few weeks later in another city. This time we had to fight twice. Early in the first match my arm got hurt. I kept going anyway and fought as hard as I could, but it wasn't enough. The officials and coaches knew I was injured and heaped praise on me for hanging in there, but I was upset about losing. I thought seriously about giving up and going home before the second match.

But I decided that facing Womack in the ring a second time would probably be a lot easier than facing Mama in the kitchen and telling her I'd quit, so I stuck around and fought him again the next day. This time I beat him, and that's how I became the number-one-ranked amateur in the United States and got a spot at the Pan-American Games.

The PanAms were held in Caracas, and it's the first time I'd ever been out of the United States. I fought a Cuban and thought I'd won, but the decision went the other way. Howard Cosell asked for an interview with me. Just before the taping he told me he thought the decision was correct, and we debated it a little. It was a nice conversation, very friendly, no big deal, but once the cameras got rolling, Cosell reached deep into his legendary vocabulary and started hurling twenty-dollars words at me. I had no idea what he was asking me. Rather than look silly by answering questions he wasn't asking, I just shook my head. Cosell paused, because he hadn't asked a Yes-No question and didn't understand what I was doing, then he asked another one. That one I understood even less, so I shook my head again. He tried one more; same thing. Finally the director broke it off, and as I walked away he said, “What's the matter with you?”

I pointed at Cosell. “He's using all of these big old words,” I explained, “and I don't know what he's talking about.” It left Cosell and me feeling less than warm about each other, and the interview was never shown on television.

My next stop was the Golden Gloves in St. Louis, and that's where I met Mike Tyson for the first time. Although we weren't going to fight each other—Mike was in a higher weight class—we were the top candidates for the “Most Outstanding Boxer” title and badly wanted to outperform each other. The title went to the fighter who scored the most convincing wins. Mike won all five of his bouts, four by knockout. I won all five of mine as well, but knocked out every opponent. This didn't sit well with Mike, even though he was awarded the “Most Outstanding Boxer” title anyway.

Then in June the Olympic trials were held in Fort Worth, Texas. This time it was Rickey Womack's turn to beat me, but I wasn't out of the Olympics yet. I'd beaten Sherman Griffin earlier so I still had a chance, but I'd need to win a box-off just to get another shot at Rickey. The box-off was to be against Bennie Heard in Colorado, but he dropped out for some reason, and so it was down to Rickey and me for the top spot. To decide which of us would get to go to the Olympics, there would be yet another box-off a month later, July 7 and 8, at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

The box-off was a tense competition for me because by that time Womack was ranked number one in the world, so in order for me to get the Olympic spot, I had to fight him twice, on consecutive days, and win both bouts. I did just that, making my next stop Gonzales, Texas, to train with the rest of the U.S. Olympic team. But the toughest part of the Olympics—getting there—was already over for me. No fighter I would go up against during the Games was as good a fighter as Womack.

But I wasn't ready to leave Las Vegas just yet. Mike Tyson was there for his own box-off, against Henry Tillman, and still hadn't forgotten my five knockouts at the Golden Gloves versus his four. As we were sitting together after the day's formal bouts were over, somebody said, “Hey, wouldn't it be cool to see Mike and Evander go at it!” This despite the fact that Mike was in the heavyweight division and I was two categories smaller. But with a lot of urging from the other guys, Mike and I got into the ring together. It probably didn't help Mike's mood any that his Olympic Trials roommate, Rickey Womack, had just lost the Olympic spot to me. What was supposed to be “a little friendly sparring” turned into such an all-out slugfest that an official ran over to call it off and warned us not to “spar” with each other again.

Sadly, Mike lost two controversial decisions to Henry Tillman and didn't go to the Olympics.

After the trials, Howard Cosell wanted to interview me again, and promised that he wouldn't make me look bad. He was true to his word. We quickly became friends and he remained a supporter of mine for the remainder of his career.

When I arrived in Los Angeles for the Games, I might as well have landed in Antarctica for all the attention that was paid to me. My teammates were some of the best-known names in amateur boxing and nobody had any idea who I was. A lot of people, including reporters, pronounced my name “Holly-field.” Sports journalists from all over the world buzzed around the other fighters and interviewed them every chance they got, but not a single reporter even said hello to me, not even the ones from Atlanta. Believe it or not, though, I was fine with that. I'd made the U.S. Olympic team and was happy to be a part of it.

After I knocked out my first opponent, people started to pay some attention. When I knocked out my second opponent, they started asking questions about me. When I knocked out the third one, Howard Cosell held me up for the world to see and my life changed forever.

But I still had to get through the semifinals…

Memorial Sports Arena—Los Angeles Olympic Games
August 10, 1984

Down in the locker room with U.S. Olympic boxing coach Pat Nappy before the fight I tried to focus, but the sounds of the crowd upstairs were coming right through the heavy concrete walls and it was hard not to let some of that excitement get to me. Not to mention that I already had at least a bronze medal in hand.

Most Olympic sports that have head-to-head matches, like volleyball and basketball, have a “playoff” for the two individuals or teams that lose their semifinal events, to determine who gets the bronze medal. It used to be that way in boxing, too, but in 1952 it was changed so that the two fighters who lose their semifinal bouts both get a bronze. Since I was already in the semifinals, a medal of some kind was a done deal. The idea that I was an Olympic medalist was so crazy wonderful that I had a tough time wrapping my mind around it and tried not to think about it now. I had work to do and needed to concentrate.

“Not gonna be as tough as Okello,” Nappy was saying, referring to yesterday's quarterfinal bout against Sylvanu Okello of Kenya, “but nobody who gets this far in the Olympics is a pushover.”

I knew that, and wasn't taking Kevin Barry, my next opponent, for granted. I never took anybody for granted, because I'd seen enough people get surprised when they took
me
for granted and I wasn't about to make that mistake myself.

But it was hard not to feel pretty confident, especially after my match against Okello. Howard Cosell interviewed me before the fight and I told him I was going to go hard at the Kenyan. Howard didn't seem to like that. He thought Okello was hard to hurt and that trying to knock him out could backfire on me. He reminded me that the Kenyan had knocked his last opponent out. If I wasn't super careful he could do the same to me.

But I'd studied Okello's fighting style. I told Cosell that I thought he was a really good counterpuncher, a guy who lets you take the first punch and then quickly comes back at you while you're a little off balance. I left it at that—for all I knew Okello was watching me on television—but what I was thinking was, if he was going to let me keep getting the first punches in, I'd hit him so hard he wouldn't be able to come back. By the time he figured out that his strategy wasn't going to work with me, I'd have the advantage in the fight.

Howard had taken a liking to me following our little misunderstanding at the PanAms, and after the official interview he pulled me off to the side. “You're the sixth American in the quarterfinals today,” he said. “All the others won their bouts.” It was his way of telling me I had to hold up my end.

He leaned toward me. “Now, listen,” he said with great seriousness. “This Okello is good. He's better than the two guys you already fought and he's better than whoever you'll be meeting in the semis or the finals. He's tough and he can take a punch. Are you listening, Evander?”

I guess I must have been smiling. It was hard not to, listening to that famous voice. His mouth was only a foot away from my head but he still sounded like he was delivering a lecture to about nine million people instead of just me.
This…O-kel-lo…is good!
I loved the way he said my name, too:
E…Van…Derholy…FIELD!
He made it sound like a whole sentence, or a piece of a song. I assured him that I was listening.

“All right, then. Go for points. Don't try to knock him out; it's too risky. Box the man and get the points!” I nodded politely, kind of thrilled to have such a famous and experienced guy give me advice even though I didn't plan on taking it.

The U.S. coaches taped the ABC telecast of the Okello bout and a bunch of us on the team watched it that night. Tell you the truth, we watched it about twenty times, with a lot of whooping and hollering, because two minutes into the first round Howard said on the air, “Only thing that troubled me about what Holyfield said in the prefight interview was that he was looking to put him out early. I've stated repeatedly in this competition, in an Olympic boxing tournament you go in to box. You don't look to load up and knock the opponent out.”

Twenty-two seconds later I loaded up and knocked the opponent out.

Howard loved it, and couldn't stop grinning afterward. I think he actually got a kick out of having been proven wrong. We spoke on the air ringside a few minutes after the fight ended and he said, “I must say, my young friend, you had the opponent absolutely cased, just as you described it in the prefight interview. You went to him and you got him.” I had to bite back my own smile in order to get a response out, and it was caught on camera.

Cosell had the last few seconds of the fight replayed on the air as we talked and asked me to take him through it. I'd set Okello up with a left jab that pushed his right hand out of the way, then caught him flush in the face with a right. That got him up against the ropes. I threw a quick left jab to keep him off balance, then a hard right to the body and a full-out uppercut to the jaw that sent him sprawling through the ropes. Okello was plenty tough, though: After a few seconds of being in a kind of daze, he untangled himself from the ropes and managed to get to his feet, but by then the count had ended and it was over.

Howard was right about one thing: Okello was a better fighter than Kevin Barry, my semifinal opponent. I wanted to KO my way to the gold, and was three for three so far, so I was determined to knock Kevin out and very confident that I could.

It was only too bad Mike Tyson wasn't there. As much as I liked Henry Tillman personally, I was sorry when Mike lost to him at the trials because it would have been fun to keep our private little competition going. I would have been up on him by one KO when the Olympics began and knew that Mike would have killed himself, not to mention the competition, to even the score.

Someone came into the locker room and handed Nappy a piece of paper. He looked at it, growled and crumpled it into his pocket.

“What?”

“Nothin'.” He reached for some tape. “Gimme your hand.”

I moved my arm away. “Nappy…”

He blew out a noisy breath and wiggled his fingers toward my arm. As I held out my hand, he said, “Ref's Yugoslavian.”

I shrugged. “So what? I'm fighting a guy from New Zealand.”

“Yeah, but after you beat him, you fight a Yugoslavian for the gold.”

Now I understood. There wasn't a Yugoslavian fight fan alive who wasn't praying that I'd lose to Kevin Barry today so I wouldn't fight Anton Josipovic for the gold. Josipovic was a really good fighter, but after my knockout of Okello everybody knew that the only way I'd lose to him was if I got kidnapped by Martians. And that's why Nappy thought a Yugoslavian ref could be bad news for me.

All the scoring in a boxing match is done by judges sitting ringside, but the ref has more clout than all of them put together. He can instruct the judges to take deductions for violations, and he has the absolute power to stop the fight and declare a winner no matter where the points stand. If the ref favored a guy or had something against him, there was plenty he could do about it.

On the other hand, this was the Olympics, not some backwater gym. If anything, Olympic referees and judges go out of their way not to show favoritism because any mistakes they make are going to be seen by about half a billion people and get analyzed to death forever. I don't know why anyone would even want the job. My guess is that most Olympic event officials probably think more about not messing up than doing a great job.

But it was Nappy's job to worry so that's what he was doing. “I'll knock Barry out,” I promised him, “and that way we won't have to worry about who's the ref.”

When I climbed into the ring a few minutes later, the crowd of nearly twelve thousand was shouting my name, only this time they were pronouncing it correctly.

Unless you've been there, you can't imagine what it's like to compete in an Olympic arena. There are flags all over the place, dozens of television cameras pointing at the ring, the fans are totally nuts before anything's even happened, and there's a kind of feeling in the air that tells you that this is
important.
Reporters wearing special press passes seem to be everywhere, interviewing anybody who'll sit still for a minute, including security guards, spectators and even each other.

I moved around my corner a little to try to stay loose. I didn't know it at the time, of course, but Bob Lee, one of the ABC announcers doing the live broadcast, was telling the television audience and his partner, Al Bernstein, that I had to be a leading contender for the Val Barker Cup, which is awarded to the outstanding boxer of the Games. I was in the best shape of my life, I understood the strengths and weaknesses of both Barry and Josipovic, none of my fights so far had made it to the end of the third round, and I had absolutely no idea that in about eight minutes I was going to be the central figure in what sportswriters would come to call one of the cruelest moments in Olympic boxing history.

Think there's no arguing with a knockout?

So did I.

For the first few seconds of the fight I tried to feel Kevin out a little, testing to see if I'd nailed his style down right. He had quickness and was light on his feet, and he wasted no time before throwing a bunch of good left jabs. But I was so jazzed and ready, it felt like I knew what he was going to do even before he did, and I swatted his punches away easily. I flicked out a couple of little jabs myself and saw that his reflexes were good, then hit him with a few hooks. His reaction was to grab hold of me, a very common tactic to stop a flurry of punches, but not something I was used to seeing so early in a fight. Kevin threw some shots as we separated, just as he should have, like Magic Johnson always throwing the ball up at the basket when he gets fouled: You never know when one is going to connect. What he shouldn't have done was throw punches
while
holding me, which he was to do repeatedly, earning him cautions and warnings.

Less than a minute into the round Kevin started to figure out that he was in trouble, and that I was racking up points and he wasn't. I kept stepping into him and he kept stepping back as I began throwing harder and harder punches, and he couldn't seem to get off a shot of his own without grabbing me at the same time. At about the 1:15 mark of the round I caught him with a solid left and he wrapped his arms around me yet again. The referee, Gligorije Novicic, ordered us to stop and gave him a caution.

After that I was all over Kevin, and the crowd knew it. The noise began to grow and people were yelling my name again. Kevin looked like he was just trying to survive, covering up a lot and throwing only half-hearted punches. Novicic cautioned him again at the 2:30 mark, and when I waded in once more, Kevin wrapped his arm
backward
around me, his left forearm over my left shoulder. That left my entire right arm free and his whole back exposed, so I whacked him a good one to the back of the head. That started him swinging around and while he was busy trying to stay upright, I cocked my left arm and launched a left to his jaw. At that exact instant the ref yelled “Stop!” but it was too late: The punch was already on its way.

This time the ref gave
me
a caution. I thought it was going to be for a late hit, but Novicic tapped the back of his head, telling me it was for the punch I'd delivered to Kevin's head before the one to his jaw. The crowd began booing loudly, but it was a good call. Novicic knew I couldn't stop the jaw shot once I'd started it, but he was right to give me grief for the behind-the-head hit.

I wasn't interested in dancing cheek to cheek for the rest of the match hoping to get in a few punches here and there and gain points. Even though it was pretty obvious that I was dominating this fight, a bout decided by judges is like a trial decided by a jury: You may think you've won, but you just plain never know until the verdict comes in, and that was too big a risk for me. When I was a kid I'd lost too many decisions in fights I'd really won, and while I'd had to wordlessly swallow those defeats in order to keep on fighting, no way was I going to let that happen at the Olympics. I'd wanted to win by a knockout anyway and this sorry samba only made me want it more.

So far Novicic was doing a great job of controlling the fight, making it clear that he wasn't going to let either of us get away with anything. This was good for me, because I was about to go into overdrive and was pretty sure he wouldn't allow any cheap shots or tricks to trip me up. A few seconds after I got my caution I threw a light left jab at Kevin that barely touched him, but he covered up and backed off anyway, without hitting back. I threw another jab and another and he kept backing up until he was against the ropes, and still he hadn't thrown a punch of his own. By now the crowd knew that something was brewing and I knew that there were only a few seconds left in the round. I tapped him with a right and when his head turned in response I came back with a hard left hook. Kevin fell back against the ropes and started to fall, but he used the ropes to keep himself upright and instinctively went into a crouch. I threw a left that glanced off his headgear and then a right that missed and went behind his neck, but I came back with another left hook that knocked him sideways. I thought he might go down but he caught himself again, and that set him up for a right cross that buckled his knees and sent him stumbling.