An interview with Evander Holyfield: God Helps Those Who Help Themselves

It's long so it might be easier to read it through the link but for those that need to view it here,


http://www.enlightennext.org/magazine/j15/holyfield.asp?page=3


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God Helps Those Who Help Themselves

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An interview with Evander Holyfield
by Andrew Cohen

On November 9, 1996, I was sitting in a darkened room surrounded by twenty-five of my male students. We all sat with our attention riveted on a large TV screen. The scene unfolding before us took our breath away. The former two-time world heavyweight boxing champion Evander Holyfield was being interviewed minutes before his historic first meeting with Mike Tyson in the ring. We watched in horror as Holyfield calmly, no, serenely, explained to the disbelieving interviewer that what would occur in the ring that night—his victory—was assured. . . .
Tyson-Holyfield
PRE-FIGHT interview
November 9, 1996

Jim Gray: Holy, you guarantee a victory tonight. What makes you think that will be the case?

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: Well, tonight is the night and you'll see.
Gray: You have an awful lot of confidence. Not many people step into the ring without being intimidated and fearful of Mike Tyson. What will you do in those initial moments to counteract that?

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: Well, you know, I'm led by the Holy Spirit, so whatever I do, I know I will have enough to win.
Gray: In fact, you have invoked God in saying that God is on your side, in essence, and you have said that it is His will that you win tonight. Now that has drawn the ire of Mike Tyson, with him saying, "Well, God doesn't like me?" Is God picking sides? . . . I mean, do you really think that God is involved in this fight?

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Well, there's no doubt. This fight will shake the whole world. And it's more than I guess I can explain right now at this time.
Gray: Bad blood—is there bad blood between you and Mike Tyson based on a comment that you may or may not have made back when Mike was convicted of ****?—or prior to his conviction?

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: Well, I don't think it's so much that there's bad blood; it's just something that has to be done, and it'll be done tonight.
Gray: So you don't feel an amount of animosity towards Mike?

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: Well, no, I don't have nothin' but love for people. But I have a job to do and I'm out to do the job, and I will do it. This win is for the Holy Spirit.
Gray: You've had a lot of confidence before. I want to retry this question: What makes you feel as though you personally can guarantee a victory? We haven't heard those types of things, basically, since Joe Namath did it back with the Jets a long, long time ago.

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: Well, I did it in the Bowe II fight and I was victorious.
Gray: It's a little different setting.

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: Well, yeah, it's a different setting. The people are different, but, you know, God's still the same—yesterday and today, He's still the same.
Gray: Good luck to you.


We were dumbfounded! What was Holyfield saying? Was he crazy? We all, along with the popular wisdom, were convinced that Evander Holyfield didn't have a prayer in the ring that night! He had lost two out of his last four fights, and all the experts were saying that he was over the hill, that Tyson would walk right through him,

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that he was "just another Mike Tyson opponent being led to the slaughter." We were all worried for his safety, for we were convinced that Evander Holyfield was in danger of becoming seriously injured that night. But more than that, we were simultaneously dismayed and bewildered by his utter doubtlessness in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds. We even felt sorry for the aging ex-champion who seemed to have found a way to avoid reality by imagining that his victory that night had been guaranteed to him by God. We all knew that he was an unusual boxer as he did not hide his deep Christian faith from the public. In fact, he was proud of it. And, in a sport that was too often made up of crude and unsavory characters, Evander Holyfield stood apart as a gentleman and a man of faith. We knew all this and we respected him for it, but now we felt he had gone too far. "No! Evander!" we shouted out loud, "Wake up!" After all, we considered ourselves to be "spiritual" men also and, in that, felt a kinship with Holyfield as a spiritual warrior. But now we found his apparent overconfidence excruciating to behold in light of his impending doom. . . .

 

But Holyfield did shock the world that night! We, along with all the other "unbelievers," were shown a miracle as he fearlessly dominated the ferocious Mike Tyson, the fight culminating in a devastating eleventh-round TKO. Like the millions of fans who watched the fight that night, we were stunned, overwhelmed and ecstatic! But . . . we were also embarrassed. Embarrassed and ashamed because we had grossly underestimated the power of this spiritual warrior's faith. We, in our arrogance, did not have the eyes to see, for we had mistaken conviction for delusion, faith for self-deception. What a teaching—what a lesson—what an example! Humbled and amazed, we watched the remarkable post-fight interview:



Tyson-Holyfield
POST-FIGHT interview
November 9, 1996

Dr. Ferdie Pacheco: That's one of the biggest surprises in boxing I ever had!

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: I give all the glory to God. And He's the credit for it. I thank God.

Pacheco: Why did you guarantee [a victory] with such assurance? How did you fight such a brilliant fight?

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: I was led by the spirit of God, and like I told everybody, whatever the spirit leads me to do, that's what I will do. And it wasn't nothin' so much that I did. Everybody thought that I was washed up—but with God, I'm not washed up.

Pacheco: Did you see him getting tired?

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It wasn't about getting tired; it was about what the Lord wanted me to do.



Who was this extraordinary man? . . . On November 10, 1998, in a wealthy suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, I got a chance to find out.
As the armed guard waved us through and the large electronic gates opened before us, revealing a magnificent villa surrounded by rolling hills and horse pastures as far as the eye could see, all the questions that I had wanted to ask Evander Holyfield rushed through my mind. I wanted to ask him about what had happened that fateful night almost exactly two years earlier. But that wasn't the reason I was there. I was there to ask the Heavyweight Champion of the World about the relationship between self-mastery and powerful spiritual faith.

 

interview

Andrew Cohen: To become Heavyweight Champion of the World, you've had to muster extraordinary self-discipline and willpower in order to develop strength of body and mind; and, in a sense, to be victorious in any worthwhile endeavor in life, it's necessary to become a master of oneself. Not many people achieve the level of self-mastery that you have. Could you please describe your own understanding of what self-mastery is all about?

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: Well, I guess "self" is not knowing that you've got help from anyone. Based on our ego, we'd say, "Well, I'm a man, and as a man I think I'm supposed to be able to do certain things." Like when I was a kid, I thought a man was supposed to be tough, so a man don't supposed to cry, he's supposed to just hold the pain in, and a man don't supposed to quit—all these things—so when I say "self-mastery," when I was younger, this is what I thought it was.

AC: So you thought self-mastery was a matter of willpower and self-control?

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: Well, I'm saying as a kid you would think that. But as a man, I know that's all just a joke because the truth is you actually can't make it, you can't be good enough, and you can't be disciplined enough if you don't have a stronger being in there.

AC: You do very intense training, though. There's only a very small minority of human beings who could endure the intensity of the kind of training that you do. It takes a certain amount of willpower and determination to make that possible, and most people simply wouldn't be able to do it. After a couple of weeks, they'd say, "No, I just don't have the discipline to do this any more."

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: Well, yeah, but we're talking about "self," and my whole thing is that the only thing that keeps me achieving is not "self"—it's faith in God. You've got to understand, my growth has always been spiritual. So to say "self-mastery"—you're talking about a guy that really learned at a younger age that it's impossible to be just "self," because the point is that even with me being totally disciplined and totally faithful, I might not have been Heavyweight Champion of the World—because I made so many mistakes! So that's how I know that God is good—because of all the mistakes that I have made. I can't look a person in the eye and say, "Look, hey, I ran every day, I trained every day, I did everything by the book." Compared to other people, maybe I did more than them, but some people worked harder than me.

AC: Could you please describe what your experience of spiritual faith is? What does it mean to experience the presence of God in one's own heart?

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: Well, that's real easy. I remember I was twelve years old when I first encountered that. I had fought this kid and he had beat me twice; so he was the first guy I ever lost against, and he was the second guy I ever lost against, and in the final it ended up he's in the tournament. Now, if I can't beat him, I can't go to the Junior Olympics in Tennessee, and I really, really, really wanted to go to Tennessee real bad—I was hurting!—and I started crying 'cause this guy was stopping me. Now in reality, see, one thing is the guy beat me twice, but the truth is—it's another day. But because he beat me twice, I kind of believe that I'm wasting my time. Then I started thinking about what my grandmother told me—"Take Jesus in." Now at twelve years old I never, never, ever had come to the point of being desperate enough to call Jesus unless I was gonna get a whupping by my mom, right? If I would be scared at night, I would just realize that Jesus was there to make me feel secure because my grandmother had always told me that you could take Jesus anywhere with you. But now I was so desperate that going into the ring I was crying, "Please Jesus, help me, help me. Help me win!" And that gave me enough confidence to go out and do all I can, and when I did all I could, I won! And then I realized what happens, you know? Because it felt like the same fight that I'd fought twice before where he got the victory, but this time they gave it to me. And I'm going, "It works! It works!"

So that was my first experience with the Lord, and from that point on I just always prayed—always prayed. And every time I had a setback, I would just pray that the Lord would allow me to see what I had done wrong. Like one thing was, I'd be fighting and all of a sudden I'd just run out of energy. Well, I found out that the reason I ran out of gas was because I had fear—a fear that made me panic, made me say, "I got to get him out or I'm gonna run out of gas." So I'd be fighting so hard that if I didn't get him out, I would be out of gas! I'd be in shape, see, but I'd psych myself out! So my whole thing was that I just prayed and, all of a sudden, I found out that fear itself is what causes a person to think about all the bad things that can happen.

AC: What you seem to be saying is that when you've lost, it was only because for one reason or another you weren't giving everything—you were allowing some thought of fear or weakness to get in the way. So are you saying that if every time you got in the ring you never allowed any thought to get in your way, and you were always giving two hundred percent—everything you had—you'd have to win every time, no matter who you're fighting?

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: No, because there's points in time that people are better. I've fought guys at times that were just better off. They had more experience, more skills, and whatever I did, they would just do a little bit more. So the point is that if you fought your best fight, and your best is not good enough, then what can you say? No more than, "Hey, I fought a great fight, and I did good!" That's life itself, and that's one thing I realized that I'm always saying because I know the word of God. See, God allows His people to prosper, which means growing. Now that don't mean by leaps and bounds. Eventually it will be leaps and bounds, but growing is growing. So if I ran track and I started off running an eleven and I ended up at a ten-five but I never got the gold medal, I still ain't got nothing to complain about. I have gotten better. So that's how I am as an athlete. I realize that there are people behind me, so I have to look for things for me to get better. Because when they're at home, one thing's for sure—they're going to be watching my last fight. But that's fine, because I'm looking at that tape, too, and seeing what I did wrong and all that, so I can be a lot better than that, so when they fight against me, I'm still ahead. My whole life is like that. The only time people catch you is when you stop. When you say you're great, that's it.

 

AC: You're talking about a certain attitude of fearless confidence, right?

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: Well, because I know the word of God, and I know that I believe, I know that fear is the only thing that prohibits you from being the very best you can be. Now when does a person become fearless? You never know! You just take one step at a time. But when you master the game you realize, "Hey, I'm jabbing. What I want to do is jab this way and make him move his head that way 'cause I can hit him when I claim the shot. All right! Knocked him down! The guy's hurt now. He ain't dealing with all his faculties now—he's hurt." Before that, I would jump on him like, "Oh, oh, I got to get on him 'cause I may not get him later," instead of realizing that I'm the one that made him get in that position, so if he clears his head up, I can make him get back in that position and do that same thing to him again. It took me all them years when I used to panic to come to the point of realizing that, as a professional fighter, when I get in the ring, I'm in control. And once I've realized I'm in control, he can't hurt me unless I allow him to hurt me. All of a sudden the fight becomes easy! And I don't have to panic 'cause if I'm in control, I'm either going to knock him out, or I'm going to win by decision.

AC: You're talking about being in control, and knowing you're in control, and that understanding changing your relationship to everything that happens. Would you say that's what self-mastery is all about?

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: Well, that's what people may think self-mastery is all about. But I don't think you can ever be just that and be the very best, because my whole thing is that having control is having the wisdom to know why I'm in the position I'm in. So even if I'm saying, "I control this fight," I recognize that God gives me the knowledge to control the fight. I see a lot of guys who may have more physical strength, may have a faster jab, maybe better footwork, but if they got all that knowledge and I got all this knowledge, then what would make me better? It's who knows how to apply the knowledge. See, I've met people who had a college degree, a master's and all that—and I just have a twelfth-grade education. They say, "How you know all that?" And I say, "Because God gives wisdom, and wisdom is how to utilize the knowledge that you have." So you know, I understand what people call "control," but you have to always be thankful for who gave you the knowledge, and for who gives you your health and strength. And when I start thinking about all the things that allow me to be in control, then I realize I'm not in control—that anything can happen on any given day, you know? If I hurt my hand or break my arm and can't fight no more, then what would I do? But because I trust in God, I know that I could take the knowledge that he's given me and just find me some kid who's willing to listen, who's willing to follow directions. I'd take my knowledge and give it to him, and we'll still make it to the top. Because again, my whole thing is that wisdom is the most powerful thing, because you can keep training someone over and over, but if that person don't want to do it, you have to just keep looking for people—keep looking until somebody says, "I want this knowledge, and I'm going to use it just like you taught me to use it"—and then you'll go to the top.

AC: In your book, The Humble Warrior, I read that after your victory over Buster Douglas you said, "It dawned on me that all the things other people had told me all my life weren't true. 'You won't make it. You can't do it. You're too small.'" You then said, "I was set free." Successful champions like yourself transmit a very positive message that says, "I Can—and you can too." This experience of "I Can" is the discovery of a powerful self-confidence that frees. It frees the personality from all self-limiting notions and ideas. Now, in the Old Testament, the Lord said, "I Am that I Am." And this experience of "I Am that I Am" is often called "revelation." In your own experience, which is more important? The revelation of "I Am that I Am," or the self-confidence that comes from knowing that "I Can"?

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: Well, the self-confidence. Because the revelation that you know who you really are means that we have to grow to love ourselves—because of all the insecurity. Because, you know, you grow up in a society where everything is different—meaning you see somebody shorter than you, you see somebody taller than you. So because we admire things in people that we don't see in ourselves, we would like to have certain things that we don't—because we think they look great on that person. So we say, "If I had this, if I had that." Now in the end, you realize that you really can't love yourself if you don't love God, because God is the self within you to make you say, "I love me," and when my love shows that I love me, then I can also love you—the way that you are, not the way that I want you to be. And when that self-confidence grows to the point that I love, then I see that I want to be something nice. And then it comes to, "Are you willing to pay the price that's necessary to be that?" Because you can, and then either you do or you don't, and there's no excuses.

Now when you say "I Can," you're talking about the inner being, your spirit: "I can do all things through Christ, because Christ has set me free from all the insecurities that would cause me to fail in life." That means you ain't worrying about somebody saying, "You didn't make it," or thinking, "I'm gonna do all this work and still I'm gonna lose," as the reason you didn't even start. And see, not even to start, that's almost like saying, "I don't even want to be born." I mean, why would I be born if I'm not supposed to win? What would bring me into this doggone world knowing that I can't make it? All that's the insecurities. But when you know that you can, it breaks all barriers, because then you say, "Hey, I can do this!"

AC: Does that confidence come from your experience of "I Am that I Am"—of your true Self? Or does it come from your own success in applying self-discipline and willpower to accomplish your goals?

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: Well, it comes from that experience of "I Am." Because the fact is that it's one thing to know about God and another thing to live of God. See, my whole thing is that my mama taught me about this, this, this and this, but if I didn't test it, then how would I know it's real? It's like a chair: If you sit in that chair, you know it's hard, but if you ain't never sat in it, you ain't sure that the sucker can hold you. These are the things that were taught to me as a kid—that God was rich and God had everything, that you are a child of God and you supposed to have these different things too. But I didn't have these different things, so I was in question. And until I fought, I thought I couldn't beat this guy!—same thing! So that's why my whole life has always been down to the fact that when you have a setback, you don't call that a loss. "Lose" means when you don't get back up. A "setback" means that, hey, something happened, something that you did wrong and then you're corrected. Now you mend it back together. Now it's stronger than it was the first time, and you know you're going through here because of the experience that you're gonna have behind you. A lot of things don't happen the same way when you learn from the past experience, which assures you that you can make it. So that is the reason why you say, "Well, through trial and error—through faith—I can sit here and tell you it's real." I can't tell nobody something is real that I ain't experienced for myself.

AC: What you're talking about is never losing faith and always persevering, right? Never giving up. Can you speak about never giving up and what that means to you, and what role it's played for you? Does never giving up merely require a decision that's made with the mind and the will? Or does it involve a spiritual dimension, a surrender to a power greater than ourselves?

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: Well, it's spiritual because it's impossible not to give up if you don't have a strong spiritual side—because, I mean, we're just people. We have this reality: "I'm just a man." So there's got to be something more than you, and you have to have your security in a higher being that you know can protect you. The reason I don't walk in fear is because I know there's a better place. So I'm saying it's the spiritual side that allows you to come to grips with life itself and what you're doing with it.

 

AC: In your book you speak about the "prayer closet," that place of inner solitude that you go to in times of prayer and self-recollection.

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: Well, people call it "prayer closet." I call it "communication"—my communication with God. I mean, how can I hear His voice if I don't talk to Him on a regular basis? And see, that communication is the key to my confidence, to knowing that I can win, and if I don't have no communication, then my confidence is shaken. My fighting is nothing if I can't pray! If someone keeps me from praying, or distracts me from praying—if I get out of prayer—I just feel that I'm a dead duck. I shouldn't even show up if my communication line is not right. I'd get tore up!

AC: I understand from what I've read about you that you experience something in those moments when you're praying by yourself. Can you describe what that experience is like?

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: Well, it's real simple. It's a give-and-take situation. Have you ever been in a relationship with a lady that you really love and then you did something wrong and you couldn't wait to just talk to her? Then when you all are talking, you all come in and greet each other, and there's, like, peace. That's the same thing with God. You know that you're wrong and all this, and so you have to come and confess your sins. "Lord, you know I did wrong, Lord, and I'm suffering." Now you got to admit that you was wrong, and the reason why you're admitting that you're wrong is because of these things that are happening to you now. You're suffering the consequences, and now you want to get out. But you know that the only way you can get out is by confessing that you're wrong. "Lord, I was wrong. I know that I was wrong, Lord. Show your love, show your mercy." And then you get this peace, so that you're able to get up and start your day off.

AC: Did you ever have a particular experience in which it became clear to you that God was the source of all things?

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: Well, yeah, actually, if you look at the first Tyson fight.

AC: I wanted to ask you about that, because before that fight you gave an interview, and you looked like you were almost in bliss. You were extremely peaceful, and you had a very big smile on your face. Everybody thought you were going to lose, that you didn't have a chance, but what you were expressing was more than confidence. It was almost as if you already knew what the outcome was going to be—and, in fact, that's what you said. It was something like, "Well, I know what's going to happen, and I can't really explain it to you, but you're going to see." Can you describe the state you were in? What was it that you knew, and why were you so peaceful?

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: Well, that's because the Lord had taken me to another level. See, all my life I'd always wanted to be God's soldier, I'd always wanted to be the one, and I'd pray, "Lord, I want to do something for you, Lord, 'cause you done so much for me!"—kind of like that. But the truth is that the first time I became the Heavyweight Champion of the World, even though I gave the Lord the credit, I kind of thought I had something to do with it too, you know? Yeah! So in reality I was thinking, "I did this and I did that"—and yet I was saying I had committed my whole self to God!

AC: There was some pride left, you mean?

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: It come down to pride, but I didn't think of it as pride. To me it was more like, "I won this Heavyweight Championship, Lord! Thank you!" You know, you give a shout out: "Lord, thank you!" But I still hadn't had the revelation of you giving your all and then seeing God do it. So I lost it. Then all of sudden I became Champion of the World again, by beating Riddick Bowe, and it was pretty much the same thing. I held it for a second and then lost it again, just like that. Then, coming into the Tyson fight, I was kind of bitter because of everything that had happened after they said I had a heart attack and all this and couldn't fight no more, and then God healed me and brought me back. See, I'd fought my first fight after that against Ray Mercer, and I guess I figured that since God had brought me back it was going to be easy. I guess I thought I'd hit 'em and they'd just sort of flip. But, man, that fight was tough! And I'm like, "Hey Lord, what's wrong?" I remember in the Mercer fight in the fifth and sixth rounds I was like, "Lord, did I make a mistake by thinking that you called me back and you didn't call me?" See, I know that God is always right, so I was thinking, "Maybe I made the bad decision. Maybe God didn't want me to get back in the ring." But as the fight kept going, the guy hit me and cut me, and I was bleeding, and so finally I just said, "Hey, I can't believe this," and when the bell rang, I got back on and I won the fight. Well, then all of a sudden I got this revelation from God that, "Hey, I called you, but you don't want to do your work. You just want Me to do it for you. No way. I do what you can't do."

See, God only does what you can't do. He don't do what you can do. And the only reason I wasn't fighting was because I thought God was supposed to help me, and so I'm not doing my job because I'm waiting on Him to do it. And that's just like being a baby. As a baby you can't feed yourself, so your parents feed you and give you all that nursing. But once you get old enough to feed yourself and you say you're hungry, they just get you the food, and you don't get no food in your stomach if you don't use your own strength to do what you can. So God has shown me that He operates like He taught us to operate—by nature. He gives you the wisdom and knowledge that "I'll look out for you" and all this, but once He done trained you, then you need to do what He trained you to do. And what you can't do, He will bring somebody to give you the knowledge you need. So after that I started understanding: "Oh, yeah. Okay, Lord."

Then my next fight, I lost against Riddick Bowe. I was sick before the fight, but I was getting paid nine million dollars, and it was all about the money. I said, "Now, if I pull out of this fight, I may not get the nine million. So let me go on in there." And this prophet came, and this is what he said: He didn't say, "You're gonna win." What he said was, "This fight is for you to win, if you do the proper thing." He said, "You're gonna knock this boy down in the sixth." And then he said, "If you stay on him, you'll win the fight. Now don't change your mind."

AC: Was this a real person?

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: Yeah! Anyway, I started laughing because this is only common sense—if you knock the guy down, get on him. That's just nature—get on him! Now I'm sick, though; I had got the hepatitis. But like I said, I had decided to fight anyway, and in the first round I looked so good. But come the second round, I didn't have no energy, and this guy was pounding me all around. Every time he hit me in the stomach it hurt so bad, but I took it all because I was looking forward to the sixth round! And when the sixth came, God said to me, "This is the round." The bell went ding! and I come out, shoo! shoo! shoo!, hit him with a left hook, and bam!—knocked him down! And I thought the fight was going to be over! The guy barely got back up, but I stepped back then, and felt tired, and I didn't get on him. And the next round, he hit me with a good shot and the referee stopped the fight. Just like that—I couldn't do nothing! I came out of the ring, and I said, "Well, hot dog, that's what the man said was going to happen, too." He didn't say I was gonna win, he only told me I was gonna knock the guy down. And my friend, my partner, was crying—and he's a grown man!—saying, "All you had to do was blow on him! But you wouldn't do nothing! Why did you do nothing?!" And all day I just sat there and said, "I don't know why. I don't know why." Then I remembered the man had told me, "Don't change your mind." But in my mind I'd said, "No, I don't want to run out of gas," because I'd knocked him down so early in the round—I knocked him down within the first fifteen seconds. And I had figured that if I didn't get him out right away, then I was gonna run out of gas, I was gonna pass out. So I didn't get on him, which allowed him to come back, and that's what got me in trouble, and then the referee stopped the fight. So then I realized the truth of the facts. It was about the word of God.

Now, about the Mike Tyson situation, well after that fight I lost, everybody talked and they were all saying, "Holyfield? Oh, he is old. He can't do anything." So instead of fighting Tyson I ended up getting another fight with this guy named Bobby Czyz.

 

AC: Yes, I saw that fight.

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: A small guy. So I go into this fight and I'm thinking in my mind, "I'm supposed to blow this little guy out." I went in there, hit him with everything. You know, I'm hurting him, but it don't look good because I ain't getting him out. And the boy quit, and everybody said, "Oh, man, Holyfield is really old. He can't even knock that little guy out." So the whole thing is that I'm down in the dumps because everything that I had planned originally had come crashing down, and I was like shaking my head. And my trainer, he said to me, "You kind of dull, ain't ya?" "Yeah," I said, "Man, I just made a fool of myself. I don't know why I just went in there and jumped on that boy like that and didn't use no boxing skills or nothing. You know, I just made myself look bad." And he said, "Yeah, but that fight's been a blessing." I said, "Yeah?" But then I said, know what? You're right. A bad fight like that," I said, "Tyson probably wants to fight me now." Two weeks later, I get a call—they want to fight. They think I've got one foot in the graveyard.

And you know, I kind of felt that way myself. On the point of signing the contract, I go back and start training. My legs are weak, I'm getting beat up by my sparring partner, and all of a sudden the facts start coming up, and the facts are that these sparring partners are beating the daylights out of me! They're not nearly as good as Tyson, and everybody's looking at me with a fake grin, because they know that I'm going to get roasted. And I'm noticing it myself because I tape my fights. So I get on my knees and I pray, "Lord, help me. I don't see how this performance can win." And more and more I prayed—and I prayed and I prayed—and it looked like things weren't going to turn. But I said, "God, I know you don't start nothing you're not going to finish." That's all I had!

And then everybody started questioning me about this Tyson. "Evander, you got kids, you got a family, you just got married, why you want to put yourself in that situation? You're a good guy." But I said, "God is going to see me through." And I just kept praying, and the pep started coming back about two weeks before the fight! Now I had been training for about fourteen to sixteen weeks. All of a sudden, two weeks before the fight, I had a new dance; I would listen to my gospel music, and everything started coming—my rhythm—and I started hitting my sparring partners. All of a sudden, it seemed like they started going into slow motion, and I could hit them. I asked my trainer how I was doin'. He said, "Man, your speed was fast," and I said, "Hot dog! I thought everything looked kind of slow today." And right away I thought, "Oh Lord, thank you! Thank you!"

Then we had a press conference in Vegas before the fight, and when the people looked at me, looked at my arms and all that, the first thing they say is, "He's cheating! He's on steroids! Look how big he is!" And I realized they were feeding all this negative information into Tyson, because if you got people who ain't strong-minded, they'll come back and tell you, "Ah, this sucker is doing this and that," and I knew it was bothering him. He could see that there wasn't no fear. And I could see that with this boy here, Tyson, something was wrong. And so every time they asked me about why I'm taking this fight and what I'm gonna do, I'd say, "Well, you know, the Holy Spirit is leading me into it." Because that's what I believed—I didn't know nothing—no more than, "Hey, Lord! I'm trusting you! This man's supposed to be the baddest man on the planet; that's what they say, Lord, but I know there ain't nobody badder than You!" See, I serve the living God, and when I prayed, God told me, "This is my victory." So realizing that the victory was already mine, I told them, "It's just that the day ain't yet come for me to get it. But then, you'll see." And after a while I said, "I don't want to talk about it no more. You'll see. When the fight is over, you all gonna be talking to me again, and I'll tell you the same thing."

So what happened after that is, I'm getting up the day before the fight and I picked up the paper and the paper said, "Can Tyson Beat God and Evander Holyfield?" Well, now I knew that regardless of what happened at all, Tyson was gonna lose. Even if something had to fall on his head from the ceiling or he had to trip on something, he had to lose that night.

AC: Why?

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: Because of what was written in that paper! Any time anybody makes a comparison like "Can somebody beat God?"—any time it gets like that, that person gonna lose. Especially if a person is a true believer, when he hears somebody say, "Can that person beat God?"—well, I just knew he was dead. When I read that, I said, "Oh, Lord, thank you for the confirmation. Thank you for the confirmation! This boy, it don't make no difference what happens, it's gonna be awful for him." And it was like somehow, deep down in my heart, I knew that we were all gonna have to work for it, but God was going to help us.

But still I was like, "Well, Lord, you going to help, but let me get it in two seconds." I still didn't want no risk! So in that first round, the bell rang and I said, "Oh, Lord, it would be beautiful if I could go in and get him with one shot." But you know, when you look at it, that's some kind of fear, too, instead of going in and saying, "Well, Lord, okay then. I'm ready to do what you want me to do," and not worry about whether it goes one round or twelve rounds. So that shows that a little of yourself will always jump up in there, because that's the first thing I did, even though when I came down to that ring I just felt the glory of God surrounding me.

 

AC: When you came into the ring?

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: Yeah, I felt good! And Tyson, I knew what he was thinking. Tyson's whole thing has always been, "Well, everybody got a plan until they get hit." But I come out there, and I'm just smiling at him, and I'm thinking that he's going to throw a left hook because I'd watched his tapes so much that I already had in my mind that, "He's gonna throw the left hook, and I'm gonna bury him with a right hand, and it's gonna be over." But he threw a right hand and hit me, wham!, and knocked me about two steps back. And so I knew he was thinking, "Hey, well, everybody got a plan until they get hit!" But if you watch the tape, you'll see the plan, because from that point on I tore into him, and every time I hit him, I could just see that he's like, "Oh, my goodness. What is this?!" And it went on and on and on. And the guy actually tried to get out of the ring—you know, he was trying to find a way to get the referee to stop it—"Hey, my eye!" and all that. But the referee didn't see the cut, so I just kept hitting him with good shots. And then when the fight was over and they asked me about it, I said, "It was all God, just like I said. Why would it change now? I was strictly led by the Holy Spirit."

Now up to that point I had never, ever fought a complete fight like that in my life. So I knew it wasn't me! I've always been temperamental. If I'd be hitting as much as I was hitting him, and I was my old self, I would have tried to get him out fast. I would have, boom boom!—hit him—and when he was hurt, I would have thrown him off me, and I would have been trying to, you know, "This is my chance!" But that fight was, boom boom!—hurt him and move off. It was like I was punishing him! I punished him, and I beat him at his own fight, and I moved him around, and I showed the people that it wasn't a fluke. It went eleven rounds! You know, you can knock somebody out and people say, "Well, you know, when a big guy hits you, that's it. "But after eleven rounds, people said, "Whoa! He outmoved him, he outboxed him, he outpunched him, he outdid him in everything! Man! Hot dog!" Some people said, "Well, you know, maybe Tyson took him for granted." But the big thing was all about how people were trying to tell me, "Well, it was you." No, it wasn't. You know, I'm a man who has lived a long time. If it was just me, I would have told you, "All right, yes, I had this master plan, and I cooked it all up. I acted like I was weak here when I fought Bobby Czyz, and I took a little shot from Riddick Bowe to make them think that I was old"—people would love that!

AC: It was just in those two weeks before the fight that you felt something coming—that you knew it was going to happen?

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: Well, you don't start trusting just in two weeks. But the whole thing is that I trust in God even though a lot of the time I can't see how His plans work. I mean, who in the world would want to get beat up all through practice like that, and then in the two weeks before the fight start tuning up, you know? I had went through all that punishment because I believed that God was going to take me through it—and He did! It's not like I wasn't shaking, but I kept going. It's just like running a race. If you're breathing harder and something says stop, you don't stop; you finish the race, because the only way you can ever receive what God has for you to receive is to go all the way through it. We all can stop and say, "Oh, well, I wasn't going to get it anyway," but the only way to know the truth is to go through it. If you go through it, then you know if it was right or wrong, but if you stop, then one day you'll come back to that same decision that you got to make, because you'll still be lacking the fruit of that knowledge.

AC: You said in prayer after you won your first heavyweight title fight, "I'm the Heavyweight Champion of the World, Lord. Please don't let fame and all the fortune that follows take me away from You." Can you please speak about the temptation of the ego to claim glory for itself when one has accomplished something great?

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: Well, before me, there were a lot of Heavyweight Champions of the World, but look at their lives and what they done. They made a lot of money, but most of them lost it, or it made them miserable. Fame and money has been their hindrance in life. So seeing all of these things that happened to them, after becoming the Heavyweight Champion of the World I realized that, "Shoot, I worked twenty years to become this guy they consider the Heavyweight Champion, and I'm still the same! Ain't nothing changed! I don't feel no better in the morning knowing that I won the title." And I'm looking at all these people lining up, praising me and going, "Ooohhhh, just let me touch you." So you know what? God, the Holy Spirit, led me into praying that prayer so I would realize, "What is it to be the Champ and make all this money and lose your soul?" See, my whole thing is that I knew I didn't want that, but it's like my mama said: "Sometimes your biggest enemy is yourself." Who's going to make me do something I know better than to do? Ain't nobody going to make me smoke. Ain't nobody going to make me drink. Ain't nobody going to make me get into bed with nobody. I can't use all these people as an excuse to fail, so I have to say, "Lord, I never been in this position before where everybody likes me." Because I came from a neighborhood where nobody liked me. I was poor, and when you're poor you ain't got nothing. But all this praise is a different situation. I've never been there, so I can't say that I'm strong enough—I need help! And I don't need to wait until I fall to call on God; I've grown to the point where I know to ask, "Hey, Lord, protect me from myself, Lord. I want to be around the famous people and all that, but Lord, don't let me get corrupt!" And God has always protected me, and He's protecting me now. You can see I've been the Heavyweight Champion of the World three times, and I ain't been down and out not one time. There's been some boxing speed breakers, the things that sort of throw you off course, but I got back on. God is good!

AC: You've also said, "I may fail God, but God never fails me."

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: Yeah, meaning that if you took a poll and asked people, "What has Evander done in life?" they'd have to say, "Well, you know, he's failed God a lot." You know, God said, "Don't commit adultery." Well, this guy done committed adultery a lot of times. "Don't commit fornication." This guy done that. God said, "Don't lie." This guy done it—all these things this guy has done. But if you look in King David's life, you'll see King David did a lot of crazy things, too. So when I was down and kind of depressed, God allowed me to read King David's life in the Bible to show me what kind of love He has—to say, "I love you, too." He showed me how Moses was, and He showed him love. He showed me how every great man that He had walking—except for Jesus, who was His son—had their shortcomings. But you know what? God never failed a one of them. And God led Noah, too; He said, "I won't fail you either—if you don't quit." See, that's the only thing God is interested in—not quitting. And He ain't said how fast you'll get there. He just says, "I'll be giving you the chance, as many chances as you want, as long as you keep your heart right." So the whole thing is that if your desire is to please God, and He knows that, then yeah, your shortcomings will still be there, but He will never fail you because He knows you will keep being a force.

 

AC: During your retirement, you experienced restlessness and eventually you returned to the ring to win the title back. Do you feel that God wanted you to keep fighting for Him or did you decide to return to the ring for yourself? You've already proven the power of your faith through your incredible spirit in the ring, so how much is enough, and at what point will it no longer be God's will for you to serve Him through boxing? And when the time comes for you to retire, how are you going to know?

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: Well, I only came back because God brought me back. And, just as God ushered me in, He'll usher me out. He brought me in not with fear but with love, and so He'll take me right on out with love—not with the kind of fear some people had that something really, really bad is going to happen to me. God is not about putting fear in you. No, He says, "Look, when you were down in the dumps, when nobody liked you, I was there. I was there in all those moments you were having a hard time—how do you think you got out?" That's God. He lets you know, "I love you before you even love yourself." And once a person gets the revelation of that, that's when they know that they can make it. "You mean that all my life I been sitting here beating this bush, thinking that 'Doggone it, I'm doing it all myself,' and then I find out that God is showing me all this love? Yeah, I'm going to love Him! I'm going to do all that I can!" And once a person makes up their mind, "I'm going to do all I can to please Him," their life starts changing.

Okay, but now the whole thing is that if you ever want to come to the truth itself, you have to realize that when God blesses you, he blesses you in whole. He don't bless you in just one thing. It's just like having mold on your bread—eventually it will cover the whole bread. So when He's finished, your whole life will be blessed. So that's why I'm not worried about it. And that's why when I talk to people I tell them, "We all have a chance in life to be good because we're all, whether we know it or not, God's people. There's things that are in us because we're God—like people, things that if you choose them and work hard at them, you'll get good at. So what could happen that, with all that, you would still be unhappy? You got to look inside." Sometimes they'll say, "That's money that's making people happy. Look, that man's worth fifty-something million—makes sense he would be just about the happiest person in the world, don't it?" But it's not the money. It's not the money! Certainly that's a part of it—having the things you like—but the whole thing is God. It's God that gives you the peace you need so that you can have only joy. All my life, when I was poor, shoot, I had a good time all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah!

See, you can't make nobody rich. The only thing you can do is get them to change their thinking. And see, if you want to fail in life, whether you're a Christian or not, just be lazy. All lazy people will come to poverty at some point in time in their life; either they going to die before they get there, or they going to be poor. Because it's real simple: God don't help nobody who don't help himself. That's why I tell people when I go out and speak, "Hey, I believe in God so much that it moves me to go out and start working." They say, "Huh?" I say, "Yeah! They ain't told you all that? They didn't tell you all that I was hard-working? I work harder than them guys! And you know why I work harder? Because I believe God is going to help me to win. But if I don't work, then how can I believe God is going to help me? God don't help nobody unless they help themselves!"

'Cause look—if you ask me to help you, the first thing I'm going to say is, "Help you with what?" That's because I got to see you doing something before I can help you to do it. You can't be sitting there saying, "I want you to help me carry a bucket." You got to be carrying the bucket! And now, if I start helping you, and you turn loose and go do something else, I'm going to put the bucket down because then I'm not helping you—I'm carrying it myself! Well that's how it is with God. He can't help you if you ain't doing it, and if you're going to quit, then it stops right there. Now He's wondering if you're going to pick it back up so He can start back and help you again. And then if tomorrow you come by and want to pick it up, then we're going to carry it one more step. And if you quit again, I'll stop again. Pretty soon you'll figure out that, hey, if I'm going to help you, then you've got to do something, too. And don't think that God don't operate the exact same way, because that's what He said. "It's not for you to expect to get something for nothing." Now in this world most times people don't want to hear that. They want you to come up and say, "Oh, you know, I was just sleeping and God woke me up. The day of the fight I walked in there and the spirit of the Lord came upon me and I just slayed that man." But you know what? That ain't what God does. There just ain't nobody in the world He'd do that for.


END..............................

 

Extra Article involving Tyson vs. Holyfield
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Rooney: Mike 'Was Scared' Former Trainer Saw Tyson Ready To Quit
BY MICHAEL KATZ
Tuesday, November 12, 1996

Mike Tyson, who four days earlier told how he "cried the night" Roberto Duran invented "No mas," was ready to quit against Evander Holyfield, his former trainer observed yesterday.

"As soon as Holyfield threw punches back, he was scared," Kevin Rooney said from Catskill, N.Y., where he began training the two-time former heavyweight champion. "He started thinking, 'What is this?' To me, Mike looked like he didn't want to get hit. That means he doesn't want to fight. He doesn't have any true desire any more."

The burly trainer blamed Don King, Tyson's promoter.

"Don King has wrecked him, he's taken potentially the greatest fighter in history and ruined him," Rooney said.

"Don King is a cancer."

Rooney was not alone in thinking Tyson "was looking to quit," as Al Certo, the veteran Jersey trainer said.

"Holyfield out-Tysoned Tyson," said Michael Bentt, former WBO heavyweight champion. "He took his heart, he took his manhood and he took his character."

"Of course he wanted to go 'No mas,' " said veteran fight agent Johnny Bos. "What do you expect? First day out (of prison), they put $35 million in his hand, that's like $12 million a year for being in prison. How hungry can he be?"

Bos, like most boxing people, thinks Tyson needs to re-hire Rooney, whom he dismissed in 1988, to get back on track. Holyfield exposed Tyson on Saturday before stopping him in the 11th round.

But Rooney, who was awarded $4.4 million in a suit brought against Tyson for breach of contract, said yesterday he has not been contacted about replacing Tyson's current troika of trainers: Jay Bright, Stacey McKinley and Dave Jacobs. Bright, like Tyson, Rooney and Teddy Atlas, is a disciple of the late Cus D'Amato, who taught Tyson to fight.

"They're stupid and unprofessional," Rooney said of the three. "They don't belong in a gym."

"The kid don't even know how to stand," said Certo, former trainer of Buddy McGirt. "He has beautiful strength, great hand speed, and he can intimidate guys who can't fight. But he don't know how to fight."

Even at Main Events, longtime promoters of Holyfield, the feeling was that Tyson, at 30, is too old to start over again with someone like Emanuel Steward (who works with potential rival Lennox Lewis) or George Benton (Oliver McCall's trainer). Rooney, who worked Tyson's entire pro career up to the 91-second knockout of Michael Spinks, would be the natural, but . . .

"I'll never get a call," Rooney said.

Not when he calls King a cancer, it was suggested.

"He is a cancer," protested Rooney.

Bos said King might have a good interest in bringing Rooney into Tyson's camp.

"How big do they want to make the gate for a rematch?" he said.

"Tyson would probably get beat up again," Rooney said, "unless he gives me eight weeks to work with him again."

But first, though, Tyson would have "to apologize and make a settlement with me (the $4.4 million award has been appealed)," Rooney said.

He said Tyson seemed "heavy, not fat, but out of shape.

"Holyfield's shot, but like Cus said, great champions always have one more fight," Rooney said. "Evander Holyfield had a lot of character. That's what Tyson doesn't have.

"In the sixth round, when he was cut, he tried to get the doctor to stop the fight so they could go to the scorecards and get a technical draw. When he was butted in the eighth round, he started to cry."

Watching, Rooney said, "made me very sad."

ROONEY'S RIPS

ON TYSON: As soon as Holyfield threw punches back, he was scared. He started thinking, `What is this?' To me, Mike looked like he didn't want to get hit. That means he doesn't want to fight. He doesn't have any true desire any more.'

ON KING: 'Don King has wrecked him, he's taken potentially the greatest fighter in history and ruined him. Don King is a cancer.'

ON TYSON'S CORNERMEN: ' They're stukpid and unprofessional. They don't belong in a gym'

http://articles.nydailynews.com/199...1_91-second-knockout-great-hand-speed-trainer

 

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