I used to think hollyfield was a steroid abuser but after checking his boxrec profile I think he was maybe natural. If you watch his early days hw matches he was slim and skinny as a young joe louis when he beat james tillis(202 pounds), then he gain a couple of lean weight but not that much sure he could have been taking roids but for me his body is natural because he was never big or carried unnatural amount of muscle,he was just jacked
Lol. Evan Fields, clean fighter amiriteguys? He took HGH, Human growth hormone, not steroids. His head grew, so did the actual physical size of his heart and he had to stop to get licensed again after he "retired" the first time.
I forgot abut hgh, what do you think about tyson? I used to think that every top boxer from 90s was on some kind of gear
Holyfield was obviously on some gear. Even as an adult professional he was built like a nerdy high schooler with a lanky frame and then suddenly becomes Hercules. His head got bigger and he lost his hair. Had weird heart problems and "Evan" scandals. Too many red flags to ignore.
Google Mike Tyson age twelve. He was 5'8" and 190 lbs of muscle. Was he abusing at twelve? Doubt it personally. https://www.sportskeeda.com/mma/mike-tyson-aged-12-how-looked-strong-punch The problem is that anytime anyone says anything about the head butting, HGH cheat Holyfield you will get people using whataboutism to try and redirect it to Tyson.
Holyfield is my fav but yeah it's pretty much proven he used HGH and I'd be surprised if that was all. Nevertheless lots of guys have used PEDs in boxing. Very few of them can come close to holyfield in terms of achievements and making exciting fights. The idea that a cruiserweight can just take some HGH and do what holyfield did at hw is laughable
Holyfield in his first few fights looked natural, but then after the first Qawi fight (where he struggled) he started losing his hair and ballooned up. The Evan Fields saga basically confirms he was on steroids
Uhhh. Lets see, he went from a LHW in the amateurs known for gassing late in fights to taking the cruiserweight title in one of the most grueling 15 rounders youll ever see in only his 12th fight. He turned pro at 22 years of age weighing 177 in November 1984. In four years he put on 43 pounds of ripped, lean muscle mass (any bodybuilder would be overjoyed at those results) while taking part in what is essentially an endurance sport. He did this while training with Mr. Olympia, Lee Haney, one of the most notorious steroid freaks of the era. He suffers premature balding, a heart condition, and poorly explained periods of sub par performances only to come back miraculously rejuvenated and bigger, stronger, and more vascular than ever. Then he gets caught purchasing performance enhancing drugs under the name "Evan Fields" ordered to his home address and using the EVANder holyFIELDs home phone number. When confronted with this fact he claimed that he would investigate and get to the bottom of it. Like OJ Simpson's investigation into the murder of his wife, we are still waiting on those results but the last time you heard him mention it he claimed he was buying steroids for his uncle. If you believe Holyfield wasnt juiced to the gills I have a bridge to sell you. Ive met Holyfield, hes not that big naturally.
There are lots of different types of performance enhancing drugs out there, used in all kinds of combinations for all kinds of different reasons. It'd usually be a bad idea for a prizefighter to use steroids just to gain mass and strength. Boxing is more about efficiency of motion than it is about being as big and strong as possible. For one thing, being too big makes fighters gas; excess muscle use is expensive, in metabolic terms. Some fighters probably use combinations to give them bigger size, more strength, and better endurance. Side effects can get pretty bad though. Probably makes them go crazy.
there is no question Holyfield was on something because of his bench press, he weighed like 214 and put up 360 for 10 reps with a close to 200bpm heart rate, he could have easily put up well over twice his body weight for a 1 rep max and there hasn't ever been a natural powerlifter that can hit that kind of body weight to bench press ratio, Holyfield was literally in Franco Columbu territory for bench press Tyson at age 12 was known to be able to rep 225 on the bench press and guys like Atlas and Rooney would bet on him in contests with other fighters that came in to train, that's only like 20lbs over body weight which is actually a good goal for bench pressing naturally I think when he got out of prison though he was put on something to fast track getting into shape, definitely lifted weights and was probably given something to speed recovery This content is protected
But it certainly did help him though, and i don't think he would of been as effective as a Heavyweight without PEDs. The early version of Holyfield at Cruiserweight was lean athletic guy, not full of muscle like he was at Heavyweight which was down to whatever he was taking. And lets not forget the 12 pounds of added muscle between the 1st and 2nd Bowe fights, which was 100 percent definitely not legit and aided him greatly in defeating Bowe.
Qawi also claims something fishy happened after the 6th round in their 1st fight, he said Holyfield looked dead tired and gone. And then all of a sudden in the next round he looked like a different fighter, i think he was suggesting something like Pryor/Arguello 1 might of occurred. Again i'm not going to accuse Holyfield when there's no evidence, and fighters can get 2nd winds but it's an interesting theory.
Yep Holyfield was my favorite HW of his era, shame about the roids, but he was a smaller guy and I guess his team felt he needed them. I'm not defending him, but surely if the majority of the top fighters were on them, Evander & his team would know about it, and he was just unlucky & got caught?
