How Anticipated Was Tyson V Holyfield 1, For You?

Bowe-Tyson was the fight I wanted most at the time and then Lewis-Tyson. Like most I viewed Holy-Tyson as a mismatch made only for Holy being such a fan favourite and thus bringing in money.

 

A source back then told me Tyson trained harder for Seldon than for Holyfield. He actually trained harder for all 4 post prison opponents. So he was resorting back to the bad habits that cost him against Douglas.

Do you remember Tyson-Seldon was originally scheduled for May 1996 but Tyson backed out due to injury. When King took over, Tyson pulled this **** often to disrupt his opponent's training regimen. He did it with Bruno in 1989, Ruddock in '89, Seldon, and the Holyfield rematch.

 

Yeah if Tyson fought Moorer first I believe he unifies. A reason why Holyfield was next was because Tyson tried to emulate his original unification of the titles. Bruno (Berbick) for the WBC belt, Seldon (Bonecrusher) for the WBA belt, Holyfield (Pinklon Thomas) for a defense and then the unification against Moorer (Tucker).

Holyfield, like Pink, was viewed as one of the best fighters in the division but definitely past it.

 

I knew Holy had it like I knew Buster had it.

 

In 1989 I was excited for it and picked Tyson.

After Tokyo I remained interested because I wanted to see if Tyson would revert to top form, but I doubted it and picked Holyfield.

After the Ruddock fights I really wasn't interested in watching Tyson anymore. I'd given up on him as a slugger with a chin.

And it had become impossible to ignore what a world-class ***hole he was.

So by the time he and Holy actually fought it barely registered. Like everybody else and for the same reasons I expected Tyson to win but didn't care.

I saw the story on the news the next day and didn't see the fight until watching it on YouTube twenty years later.

 

Was expecting an entertaining fight for as long as Holyfield stayed vertical. Then I saw Tyson's ringwalk & physique when he dis robed & wished I'd backed the underdog.

 

Like most I thought that it was going to be an easy one for Tyson as he was on a good run of form and Holyfield seemed to have reached the end of the line.

 

To be quite frank, if the Holyfield vs Tyson match had taken place before Mike Tyson got into trouble with Desiree Washington, it would have been more anticipated as a Mega fight than it was in Nov 1996 and June 1997. How a 23 year old man loses his prime at that age is beyond me when he faced off against James Buster Douglas in Feb 1990. Those past theories make it sound like Tyson was co dependent on Cus D Amato and Kevin Rooney, Mike knew how to fight, for Christ's sake he was a world champion. If he did not prepare, it was his own fault, not the fight fans fault. When Evander and Mike first fought, Holyfield pushed him around, making no excuses for Tyson, Bruce Seldon was no Hall Of Famer to get ready for Holyfield. The last fight between Tyson and Holyfield had too much drama involved, reminded me of the old soap operas on television in their golden years, the chomp of the ear had some humor to it, the television commercials of that time did poke fun at their second match.

 

Over here in the UK people knew Holyfield was no pushover, anybody who'd seen the Real Deal fight knew Tyson had his hands full.
I was around 11 at the time and a massive Tyson fan but Holyfield bullied the bully twice and didn't Tyson know about it!

 

I expected Evander not to go down as easily as Bruno and Seldon, but not to win.
When the fight started I was also scared for Evander. But he had a very good gameplan, and a "surprise" happened; Holyfield knocked out Tyson.
I wasn't disappointed because I watched a great fight.

 

That was a different ring walk, wasn't it? Pushing his lead man in the back to walk faster like Mike was in a hurry to get things done.

 

Tyson kicks his ass pre prison. If King didn't set Mike up with the Desiree Washington bull**** then Holyfield and Lewis wouldn't have had careers!!

 

I actually have the poster for their originally scheduled pre-prison fight. I always wonder how that fight would’ve gone.

As for the actual fight, I was worried for Holyfield’s health. I thought he might have a heart attack or something. I hadn’t seen much of Tyson so I didn’t know where he was skillwise. Compare this Tyson to the one that fought Mitch Green. He’s much less aggressive and less willing to break a fighter down gradually. I didn’t know that though so I figured he would clobber Holyfield. It was pretty shocking to me.

I don’t know about 80’s Tyson but Evander was mentally much much stronger than any version of 90’s Mike.