Heart Got The Better Of Holyfield

If there is one word most often associated with Evander Holyfield, it is heart. Heart is what brought a mid-sized man to the heavyweight championship. And heart is what may have been his undoing on a chilly Saturday night at Caesars Palace.

In the third installment of the Bowe-Holyfield trilogy, the man they call “Real Deal” had Riddick Bowe finished. Then he let Bowe off the hook. Literally. A stunning left hook delivered from the chiseled, 213-pound Holyfield floored Bowe and left him dazed and searching for the source of the bells he surely was hearing.

Then, inexplicably, Holyfield stopped fighting. He had Bowe trapped in a corner. Bowe was a glancing blow away from crumpling to the canvas. And Holyfield did not advance.

Maybe some guys are too nice to have a killer instinct. Maybe Evander Holyfield is a champion more concerned with never giving up than with finishing someone off. A big heart is nice on Valentine’s Day, but too much of it in pugilism can spell doom.

Instead, Bowe is the champion of the world, at least in the eyes of everyone not presently immersed in the sport’s foul alphabet soup. He raised his arms in joyous triumph at 58 seconds of the eighth round of a scheduled 12-rounder in the Caesars outdoor stadium, primarily because Holyfield gave him a reprieve.

If Holyfield had put away Bowe when he had the chance, Holyfield would not have been subjected to the calamitous events of the eighth round.

Well after Bowe had regained his senses, he separated Holyfield from his with a right hand that was perfectly timed from the perspective of Bowe’s camp and poorly scheduled from Holyfield’s. It was like a fearsome homerun hitter who swings with all his might at a fastball thrown at 100 mph and hits the sweet spot. Bowe hurled a right into the air at the precise moment that Holyfield decided to lean forward.

The result was the courageous and tenacious Holyfield flopping forward to the mat like a clumsy soul trying roller skates for the first time. He scraped his knees on the mat in a quasi-frantic attempt to get up. His head moved from side to side in a scary search for coherence. He finally got to his feet, but it was a short stay.

After referee Joe Cortez interceded and eventually allowed Holyfield to continue, Bowe showed that he learned from his opponent’s mistake two rounds earlier. Bowe came after Holyfield hard, smashed him with another right and put him down.

Almost as enigmatic as he was in the ring, Holyfield offered little in the way of a direct explanation as to why he didn’t put away Bowe when he had the chance.

“I had him but I wasn’t able to finish him,” Holyfield said. “I hurt him. I hit him with some clean shots but he kept his hands up. He fought smart when he was hurt.”

Even though it is unfathomable, Holyfield appeared at times during the fight like a man who was out of condition. He is muscular and does not show a hint of body fat around the midsection, yet he staggered and bobbed and often wandered aimlessly.

“I convinced him to punch with me,” Bowe said of Holyfield’s decision not to stick and move and box. “That’s why I was able to catch him.”

Bowe hammed it up later in his press conference with Lennox Lewis, at one point calling him a less than manly name and suggesting he would be the first man Bowe knocks out in ‘96.

But for now, Holyfield is the victim of the hour. Unfortunately, it was one too many from the heart for Evander Holyfield.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Michael Ventre Los Angeles Daily News