Mike Katz article, 1996 Holyfield-Tyson, including thoughts from EDDIE FUTCH

Holyfield Wins One For The Ages

BY MICHAEL KATZ
Monday, November 11, 1996

LAS VEGAS




How would he have done against Muhammad Ali or Joe Louis?
He would have lost to those giants. He would have lost as well to Jack Dempsey and Rocky Marciano, said Eddie Futch, who has seen them all. Sonny Liston, too. The great trainer was not knocking Evander Holyfield. He had just promoted him in the ratings.
Holyfield is now the heavyweight fighter for the ages from this generation. Not Mike Tyson.
"In history, Evander has to go way above Mike Tyson," Futch said after watching the happy ending Saturday night at the MGM Grand.
There can be no doubt about Tyson now, not after Holyfield took his punches and answered back, not after the 1984 Olympic light-heavyweight, "too small" to be a heavyweight, pushed Tyson around the ring, wearing him down.
"It exposed Mr. Tyson," said Futch.
Tyson is a bully. Worse, as Bert Gordon said to Minnesota Fats in "The Hustler," when Fast Eddie said it didn't matter who won that particular night, "Stick with this kid, he's a loser."
Tyson had said days before it was important to take a beating like a man, like he did in Tokyo against James (Buster) Douglas. Bert Gordon would have told him that it was more important not to accept the beating.
Tyson took it because he had no idea of how to prevent it, because once he could not take Holyfield out quickly, he was lost. Heavyweight of the ages? His former trainer, Teddy Atlas, said Tyson was "a shooting star," burning brightly, for short duration.
His brightest span was when he knocked out the faded Pinklon Thomas, the old Larry Holmes and the frightened Tyrell Biggs and Michael Spinks.
He never beat a great fighter, yet he was ordained by many worthy of fighting Joe Frazier and Jack Johnson in mind games. He came back from prison and fought guys who couldn't hold on to their lunch money at Vasser.
Don King is no dope. He kept Tyson away from the biggest fights. George Foreman, a ponderous 47, was still too dangerous.
"Mike Tyson cannot fight going backwards," said Futch. "Holyfield showed that. And George would have pushed him back."
He'd beat up King's hand-picked opponent, then skip the press conferences in disdain for his critics. On Saturday night, he showed up for the press conference. He had lost more than a fight or a WBA belt. He lost more than image of indestructability. He lost his place in history as one of the greats.
We should have seen it coming. This was no great upset. The odds were wrong, reflecting the belief that Holyfield was damaged goods and Tyson was a monster.
I quoted Walter Tevis and his novel, "The Hustler," as soon as Tyson left prison and surrounded himself with the same yes-men and riff-raff but neglected to hire a trainer. First time he faced a real fighter, he would lose, I wrote. Who was to guess that Holyfield, at 34 and fading, was still a fighter after he couldn't drop the undersized Bobby Czyz at the Garden last May. Holyfield, obviously, had the same game plan Tyson had for him: Walk in the ring and knock the man out. Holyfield said he couldn't take "tuneups" seriously and, besides, in retrospect, he said if he hadn't looked so bad against Czyz, he wouldn't have gotten the Tyson fight.
Remember now who Tyson got beaten up by Saturday. This was no young stud at the peak of his career. Holyfield had lost two of three to Riddick Bowe. He managed to lose to Michael Moorer. He couldn't dent Foreman and he had trouble with the ancient Holmes, was hurt by Bert Cooper. He was without heavyweight power.
Yet, Holyfield belongs to the ages now. Not just because he beat Tyson, or he beat Bowe in their middle bout, when again we "experts" gave him no chance. He delights in exasperating us, in doing things we tell him he can't, and then he does not say "I told you so." He thanks his Lord that he can perhaps serve as an example for others. There are kids, he said, "who don't come out of the ghettos because people say they can't."
Three times, with great dignity, he has won the heavyweight title, or at least a share of it these diluted days. Throughout his career, including a stint as undisputed cruiserweight champion, with his allegedly damaged heart, one which we all should have, he has humbled those who needed humbling.
"The only difference between Tyson and myself," Holyfield said, is "he just knocked people out quicker than I did."
The difference is what happened when Tyson didn't knock them out. Young Tyson had what Futch called "quick power" a combination of big punches delivered by fast hands. But when that wasn't enough, he became moody, he sulked, he walked around the ring aimlessly. Like a loser.
"You can't consider yourself great if you didn't fight everyone who is fighting," said Holyfield.
On Saturday night, he knocks out Bowe, he knocks out Moorer the only two men to have beaten him.
IN THE MIND games of yesterday, he beats Floyd Patterson, said Futch, and many, many others.
Tyson said Holyfield was "not in my league." He's right. Holyfield plays in the greatest league of all. Tyson should fight Frans Botha.

 

Yeah, that's true.
And it goes to show how highly Eddie Futch rated the likes of Muhammad Ali, Joe Louis, Jack Dempsey, Rocky Marciano, Sonny Liston .... that he picked them all to beat Holyfield.

:good

Personally, I'd rate Holyfield above Lennox Lewis and Mike Tyson, and below Larry Holmes.

 

Fighters of Holyfield's style - going to war with every one, absorbing punishment, and fighting men 30+ pound heavier, outside of your "natural" weight class - decay even faster. :deal

 

Well, he was certainly badly damaged goods by the time he fought Tyson, at 34.

 

That's a revisionist stance that I don't buy into, and an excuse.
Holyfield looked badly old and faded in 3 of his last 4 fights going in against Tyson, after the Tyson rematch he looked old again when knocking out Moorer, and just slipped from then on.
He was a huge underdog against Tyson for that very reason.

Mentally, yes, he was in better shape than Tyson. But he probably always had been.

 

Good for you. :good
Everyone on this forum did the same, apparently.

The point is, Holyfield was badly damaged goods, way past his best, and pulled out a great win. Tyson failed miserably to re-establish himself against a hand-picked opponent.

You think Tyson was greater, for whatever reason. Perhaps because you think Tyrell Biggs and Tony Tucker were great fighters or Buster Douglas an ATG or something.

 

I have no idea how Tucker would do against Brennan.
I remember Tony Tucker, and his long and astounding career of nothing fights. The only thing that gives his name any real currency whatsoever is the fact prime Tyson couldn't knock him out, and the fact that Tucker beat a guy for a bogus title who went on to knock Tyson out.
Likewise, we could say Brennan's only really remembered for fighting Dempsey.

I find your recent turn towards glorifying the mediocre 80s crop quite impressive since I'm sure you used to mock the efforts by others to overrate Tubbs, Page, Witherspoon et al.

Tyson was knocked the hell out by Douglas in his prime (which lasted what ? 2, 3 years ?) too, so if that's "vastly" more impressive than Dempsey's prime, I just don't see it.

Not than any of this same old "Dempsey talk" explains why you rate Tyson above Holyfield.

Now you want to kill him off early to make him an enigma in a desperate effort to boost his greatness.
Forget all that bull****, he got beat up and knocked out in 1990, at age 23, just about 18 months after his supposed peak win, lost his championship.

Good win, but is this what you're going to rest his greatness on ? A KO of an badly faded over-the-hill 38-year-old Holmes. A fight that was seen as such a foregone conclusion it took on the role of a "filler" fight build-up for Tyson's hoped super-fight against 4-fight heavyweight Spinks.

The fact that Holyfield looks less impressive against a shitty old Holmes doesn't make Tyson's one of the all-time great ones.
Holmes was a has-been and a massive underdog.

On close, (and even disputed), decisions in non-title fights.

Tyson was knocked into oblivion for the undisputed championship.

"Beltholders" is a joke, and you know it.
We can give Bill Brennan an alphabet belt as soon as he steps out of the time machine to face Tony Tucker.