Holyfield Has Purpose Others Cannot Comprehend Despite Past Problems, He Doesn’t Believe His Health Is In Danger

Evander Holyfield is like everyone else with an interest in boxing. He sees what they see when he thinks coldly about the fact that he will fight Bobby Czyz Friday night at Madison Square Garden at the age of 33. He sees many reasons not to do it.

Much of the boxing world is perplexed at Holyfield’s decision to fight on against the former light heavyweight champion in the main event of a three-fight heavyweight card that also matches former World Boxing Council champion Lennox Lewis against ex-World Boxing Organization titleholder Ray Mercer and two-time champion Tim Witherspoon against Cuban exile Jorge Luis Gonzalez on HBO.

Men who have long made their living in boxing are bothered by the fact that Holyfield has lost two of his last three fights and had breathing problems in both defeats, the second of which came last November against Riddick Bowe when Holyfield became winded after one round and was unable to finish his opponent when only one more solid punch would have done it in the sixth. Two rounds later, he was flat on his back, a beaten man.

These same people are amazed that someone who has earned $100 million in purses and twice won the world heavyweight title chooses to risk his well-being again for $1.5 million. They see no purpose in this continued exposure to risk and ruin and they fear the consequences.

“Evander has a tremendous amount to lose,” said his former trainer, Emanuel Steward, who now handles Lewis. “He has his health and his credibility.”

Holyfield doesn’t disagree with much of this critical thinking but he doesn’t agree with the key component in it. He doesn’t believe in his heart, where some say his trouble lies both medically and emotionally, that boxing will lead him to the kind of shuffling ruin Muhammad Ali lives with or to the mumbling incoherence that has left Jerry Quarry lost in his own mind.

He believes something different about his future in boxing. He believes his destiny will take him in another direction one last time, back to somewhere familiar to him.

“I’m not going to be (badly) injured,” the deeply religious Holyfield says. “Not to that point. I’m protected. I believe my angels are always on their duty. I can think of all the reasons why I shouldn’t fight, but somehow that ain’t enough reasons not to.

“I’m going to go out a world champion. There’s no other way. I have got my mind set on it. “

The reason Holyfield cannot stop is not simply that he has no fear of injury. Although he believes his God will always protect him from harm, if not from defeat, he also is convinced that there is something left for him to do. He will not say publicly that he is Good to Mike Tyson’s Evil. He will not say publicly that he believes his God has one mission left for him - to show that Tyson’s swaggering ways and foul behavior are not the measure of a man or of the heavyweight champion, although he believes both to be true.

He will only talk of his destiny and his belief that he is here fighting Czyz - a fight to nowhere, some will tell you - because eventually, fights like this will lead him back to the throne room.

“I just want to win that title one more time,” Holyfield explains. “I don’t have to defend it. When people look at you, they look at your beginning and your ending. My ending will be with a championship.”

That is certainly one ending, but others in boxing fear another, sadder one for one of the sport’s great warriors. They believe the man from Atlanta who no one thought was big enough to be a heavyweight but proved them wrong time and time again is headed for a troubled ending.

They see him taking bruising punishment from men far bigger (although that will not be the case against the smaller Czyz, of whom Holyfield’s trainer, Don Turner, said, “You think we’re in danger with this?”) and paying harshly for it sometime down the road.

But it is Evander Holyfield’s decision whether to go on or not now, so he can live with what follows. He is not being pushed by mean-spirited promoters or evil-minded managers. He is not being propelled by poverty any longer. He is fighting because it is his choice now.