The Myth of Evander Holyfield

Larry Donald is one of those slick flashy but light-handed boxers who can steal a fight from anyone, more so against a faded and not commited Holyfield. I saw that fight and completely disagree with the HBO crew that he should have retired at that moment. I am not going to make excuses for any of Holy's losses specially against Toney, Byrd and Donald, those were a series of 3 defeats that would break anyone's spirit. Now, I completely disagree on badmouthing Michael Moorer who was a great LHWT and the first southpaw HWT Champion in history, on criticizing his loss to John Ruiz back then, or his latest losses and at thies stage of his career against Sultan Ibragimov in Russia or Nicolai Valuev in Switzerland. I believe that they don't give Vander a shot cause they respect him more than anything else, I mean the Klitschko brothers.

 

Tough question. I would say by the 60's most insiders had access to them and there were some sports trainers and physicians who were ahead of their time regarding their benefits. I can say with confidence that by the 80's they were everywhere.

Poster's who are so insistant about their favorites not using are laughable to me. Put it this way; If those same poster's were in a sport where pride and big paydays were at stake with easily circumvented testing protocols they would all be using as well.

 

Agreed:good PED's simply level the playing field!

 

As I remember Bob Hazelton said he was introduced to roids by Joe Frazier. So by the 60's PED's were well known and common...

 

Exactly. Evander and all those cruiserweights were big men.And Holy especially. The average man is 5'9" and 180 pounds or so right? He left CW division and took some time off and came back bulked up which is not that hard for a pro athlete with determination. Think about Huck or Adamek who did similar things. In Holyfield's first HW fights he weighed 205-210. He didnt come in at 245 and looking like Briggs. He came in at a little over the HW minimum.
The biggest he ever fought at was his recent fights at 225. People just cant accept that he is a genuinely great guy with a clean record.

 

I want to believe this as Holy is one of my favorite fighters of all-time, but its difficult to think he didnt dabble in at least Winny V or HGH. I dont think he ran hardcore stuff consistently, though.