What A Lousy Time To Have A Good Fight

About a quarter to midnight Saturday, Michael Moorer entered a boxing ring on the floor of the Thomas & Mack Center to the beat of an old-school rap song. His head was down. Sweat dripped from his chin onto his gray sweatshirt.

A few minutes later, Evander Holyfield joined him as a gospel song took over the public address system. His white trunks were trimmed in purple. They were embroidered with the word “Warrior” and the phrase “Phils 4:13.”

At about the moment Saturday turned into Sunday, the bell sounded and Moorer and Holyfield approached each other, fists up. What unfolded was the best heavyweight fight no one saw. Or, certainly, read about the next day.

What a shame.

This wasn’t expected to be much of a bout despite the credentials of both men. Holyfield was the WBA champion and, more importantly, the people’s champion. It was his first fight since fending off Mikey the Muncher for a second time last June. Moorer was the IBF title-holder who had knocked off Holyfield’s crown 3-1/2 years ago, but it wasn’t thought that he possessed what it would take now to dethrone Tyson’s tamer.

How wrong we were.

All along press row, laptop computers slammed shut in frustration as the two champs slammed punches into each other. Final deadlines were passing first for East Coast writers, who watched the fight begin at one o’clock in the morning their time. As the fight continued, then went shut the writing instruments of Central Standard Time chroniclers. Those in L.A. and Honolulu, presumably, got the whole story, and what a story it proved to be.

Holyfield looked as disinterested in the opening 6 minutes as some observers suggested he would be the entire fight. His body was dry. His counter punching was slow. His defense, never his strong suit, was nonexistent.

Then, from a clash of heads in the third round, blood began to trickle from around Holyfield’s right eye. Holyfield was seeing red, literally. The fight was on.

Holyfield slugged his way through the fourth. In the fifth, with a “Holyfield” chant starting among the announced live gate of just 13,200, he floored Moorer with a right hand that finished a three-punch combination. It would be the first of five times Moorer would collapse under the weight of Holyfield’s will.

Styles, it is said, makes fights. Heart made this one, though. Moorer’s in particular. He rose from the canvas each time after getting floored, pounding the canvas in frustration with his fists the last time. Only the ring doctor, Flip Homansky, and referee, Mitch Halpern, could stop him from continuing, which they did before the ninth-round bell sounded at about 12:30 Sunday morning.

“I don’t think they should’ve stopped it,” a very coherent and articulate Moorer said afterward. “Flip looked at me, and I told him I was fine. I like these types of fights.”

There was nothing not to like about this fight. It was action-packed from the right hand Moorer staggered Holyfield with in the first round. It was clean, save the opening of the sixth round when Moorer, out of frustration, lifted Holyfield around the torso and carried him into a corner. It ended without a disqualification, which has marred several recent heavyweight fights.

“I think this is one of the best heavyweight fights we’ve seen in a long, long time,” promoter Don King said afterward.

He got the first half right. Who, however, east of the Mississippi stayed up into the next day to watch this on pay-per-view for $50? Who west of the big river stayed up after Saturday Night Live to do the same?

King could’ve started this fight earlier. He didn’t have to put it at the end of his card that included several other lesser and lower-weight title fights. He could have moved it to a time when it could’ve won new friends for the always troubled sport. Such a late-starting fight shouldn’t be allowed next summer when it is expected that Holyfield will attempt to become the undisputed heavyweight champ by beating WBC titleholder Lennox Lewis.

King was happy to point out in the post-fight press conference that everyone can watch a tape of Holyfield-Moorer II on the Showtime cable television network come Saturday evening. It will be aired about the same time rival cable network HBO is scheduled to show “Don King: Only in America,” the made-for-cable TV movie of Jack Newfield’s unflattering and unauthorized biography of King.

“I’m going to compete against myself,” King chortled. “America is truly great!”

Ving Rhames is said to have given a virtuoso performance as King. Evander Holyfield and Michael Moorer gave virtuoso performances in their second fight as themselves.