He actually announced his retirement after the Moorer fight. Doctors said this was a congenital problem and that he was fighting while enduring heart failure. Some said he had had an actual heart attack or that a hole had been torn in the heart muscle. Yet, a year later, he faced Mercer and then Lewis. I always found this excuse to be fishy, at best. Was he ever operated on? Did the problem ever recur? He went on and fought for 16 years but rarely a mention of this? Thoughts?
Probably just a misdiagnosis. Doctors get things wrong quite often. I think he was in fact suffering from some injury deep in his shoulder and pec or something like that, possibly a tear and pinched nerve. Probably gave off the same symptoms as a heart condition. If you watch the Moorer fight it seems he's fighting hurt.
Holyfield suffered shoulder injury and was pumped full of morphine and saline right after the fight to ease the pain. I believe that led to the condition where he was misdiagnosed.
The symptoms were consistent with HGH use, but they never tested for it. They asked Holyfield if he took any of it. He said no and that was that.
Steroids/PEDs He was even asked about this by Bryant Gumble (I think) around this time. Blows my mind that some think he was clean. The guy gained 30 pounds of lean ripped muscle while competing in an endurance sport in his mid/late 20s while training with the biggest steroid freak of the era went bald prematurely, suffered a heart ailment, had wide swings in his performances just like someone who cycles on and off, and eventually got caught buying roids. Yeah, he was clean...
This. Now we're living in an age where you have to prove the negative that you're NOT putting stuff inside your body. Makes me pine for the days when spit and emery boards were used by pitchers in baseball. Tom Brady's a hero, a throwback to the good old days with Deflategate. You can bet Tony Galento and Fritzie Zivic cheated the right way, with elbows, head butts, laces and thumbs. Where's Fosbury when you need him? No amount of PED use could have beaten him using the high jump style he wiped out!
Totally forgot about the Benny Hinn connection. Gold Star for you, sir. In this light, the correct light, I think Moorer's victory requires more recognition or Holy's worth (and also perahps Bowe's) requires less.
I'm not sure why people think his PED/steroid use was the cause of this alleged heart ailment and sh!tty performance against Moorer. Hardly "performance enhancement" is it ? Apparently the man was using these PEDs for years before, and for years after, but somehow the "logical" conclusion to draw from an injury and a bad performance was that it was "obviously the PEDs".
It was my understanding, keepin it at its most basic, that the root of his issue was a misdiagnosed enleged heart. That it occurs occasionlly from over training and can be exacerbated by PEDs
From watching the Moorer fight he appears to have injured his shoulder quite badly. Apparently he went into that fight with a bad shoulder which he'd originally hurt in his previous fight in a clinch with Bowe. I think the heart condition diagnosis was probably a hasty diagnosis made by a doctor who didn't have the full medical history. Holyfield suffered from shoulder injuries right up until the Byrd, Toney and Donald losses, where he went for several surgeries to try to fix those injuries he'd been fighting and training around for years. The "mysterious - sticky heart - steroids - faith healers" narrative is a bit more interesting though, admittedly.
I've never heard of a doctor mistaking a shoulder injury for a heart condition. It sounds far fetched.