Was this Holyfield’s strategy to maximise his chances of beating Lewis in 1999?

Given Holyfield’s age/wear (his two signature wins came in 1993 and 1996), his team may have reasoned that he could maximise his chances of winning at least one of the Lewis fights if he employed the following strategy:

1. Tried to puncher’s chance the suspect-chinned Lewis in fight 1, taking few risks otherwise. If he succeeded then he would win and likely make Lewis even more tentative in the rematch, if he failed then he would probably lose a wide decision, facilitating the next step

2. Holyfield losing a wide decision in fight 1 would reduce Lewis’s motivation and focus for fight 2 as he would have already experienced being undisputed heavyweight champion for 8 months (with a trilogy on the cards if Lewis lost fight 2 functioning as an unhelpful safety valve) and he’d be more risk-averse with all of the belts to lose, whereas it would be do or die for Holyfield. Lewis would also underestimate “shot”, “clear loser” Holyfield going into fight 2, further reducing his motivation and focus. Holyfield would have a better idea of the adjustments to make in fight 2 having not shown Lewis his hand in fight 1, whereas Lewis would take an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” attitude to a far greater degree. Expectations of Holyfield would be significantly lower going into fight 2 than they were going into fight 1 which could lead to more favourable judging for Holyfield if he exceeded expectations, as could the fact that Lewis had been given the decision in fight 1. It would have felt fairer to even the score (rather than have cautious giant pointfighter Lewis go 2-0 up) and give the win to warrior Holyfield after a highly competitive and more exciting rematch, especially as he would have been perceived to have overcome far more adversity (being the significantly older/more worn, much smaller, much less powerful man and the perennial underdog who had to come back from a clear defeat in fight 1, as well as four total defeats in his career to Lewis’s one) and Holyfield critically had home advantage over foreign champion Lewis. It would also make sense from an economic point of view, setting up an ultra-lucrative Holyfield-Lewis trilogy fight. A potential trilogy providing an additional reason why giving Holyfield the verdict would have been fairer as it wouldn’t put 34 year old Lewis (1-1 with Holyfield, wants a decider) out in the cold as Foreman/Holmes/Bowe/Tyson-conqueror American ATG 37 year old Holyfield would have been at 0-2.

The spanner in the works of this master plan was the heavily criticised and embarrassing “robbery” draw verdict in fight 1, which sustained Lewis’s motivation, focus and made it practically unfeasible to deny him twice without exceptional reason. Had Lewis been awarded a UD after fight 1, I strongly suspect that Holyfield would have done even better in fight 2 (which was highly competitive anyway) for the aforementioned reasons and got the nod from the American judges.

 

"Did they give it to LL to make up for the first, I literally don't know?"

There was certainly an element of that. The backlash from the "robbery" verdict in fight 1 was so great that they couldn't rob Lewis a 2nd time. So in a close fight they were always going to give it to Lewis. Had Lewis been given the verdict in fight 1, I think Holyfield gets it in fight 2, for the reasons I outlined.

 

His career was far better managed than his main rivals Bowe, Tyson and Holyfield and he peaked last. "History is written by the victors" applies.