What was the deal with Holyfield and head butting?

Evander Holyfield just wanted to create a new meal on the menu for all to enjoy, Sauteed Ear with Barbecue Sauce. Bobby Flay would have made it into a culinary delight. Lol.

 

It would be charitable to assume innocence with PEDs when recreational drug use is confessed.
It would also be unreasonable to assume because someone used pot, cocaine or whatever they must have used PEDs.
They may have, but they may also have just supported an addiction &/or like to party.

I never thought nor suggested that muscle memory is retaining muscle mass.
Your definition of muscle memory is correct but incomplete.
It also encompasses the fact that due to the past entrainment, all other things being equal, people can recover their old muscle & strength faster that if they never reached whatever level.

The body is primed to respond quicker, the neural pathways are familiar & like many other processes past habituation eases the way. Like your example.
A rule of thumb is it takes half as long as you are out of the gym to reach your old level.

 

I’ve never heard someone can regain muscle mass faster than they can gain it in the first place. I’ll have to ponder that one.

Now if they have underlying musculature (say a bulked-up guy who worked out heavily with weights takes two years off and then starts back up) they probably start at a higher level than someone without same (a guy who has never exercised) and thus (re)gain faster by being able to lift more from a more advanced starting point maybe?

 

Not so secret the older he got. Became far more apparent with his offensive prowess.

 

No sir, because what you posit is not really regaining, it does not speak to what percentage is gained.
Actually while you are right that the guys who lifted heavy & is bulkier would not likely lose all of his strength & mass, as small point is the guy who never exercised would likely gain more at the very start, because his muscles would be recruited inefficiently, & in the first month or so while his body got more effective at using whatever force his frame could muster, he would make faster gains...

But not for long, soon he reaches near max. efficiency & further progress requires building more muscle.
The main point is that the guy who took off 2 years, working at the same intensity, he likely takes ~ a year to get back to his old level.
That could be from years of on & off, serious & not lifting, or 2 hard years of training...

But it is a well-recognized phenomena.
Also there is a gene that makes one retain muscle longer. A friend tested for it when he had a University study/screening, although near 30% of folks have it.
I have long noted some say they lose strength quickly if not exercising for only a week or so.
I never felt this. On the other hand, everyone benefits & suffers from homeostasis, but some are "fast responders" including to cardio conditioning.

So the author of one article recalls his coach praised him for working harder than his peers; he knew that was false, he just got fit faster from the same stimulation.
Last summer I happened to do much more than my regular but fairly infrequent cardio, mostly swimming, I think 26 out of 32 daaaaze I averaged over 45 minutes of aerobic stimulation.

When I got on the "Life Fitness" machine, I was at the same exact level of mileage/fitness with the same, I think 95% effort. I had not moved the needle at all.
So it seems both relatively hard for me to gain or lose cardio (or strength), but this is mere individual genetic variation.

 

Against Tyson he he did hold his ground as Tyson came storming in. No problem with that at all. Mike just couldn't handle being roughed up for once.
Maybe Holyfield discovered his head could be an effective weapon in fights after that.

 

I admit he's not the best public speaker in the world, but as a boxer, he has a reputation among his peers for being skilled and cunning.

Bowe, Moorer, Mercer, Lennox, and Ossie Ocasio rated Holyfield as having the best boxing skills they'd ever faced. Three of those guys (Lennox, Bowe, and Ocasio), along with John Ruiz, said that Holyfield had the best defense, too, so there's an art behind his apparent brawling. Mercer and Ocasio also agreed with Pinklon Thomas in rating Holy's footwork above any of their opponents. And when asked specifically about the "smartest" fighter they'd ever gone up against, Bowe, Byrd, Moorer, Ruiz, Valuev, Pinklon, and Ocasio all agreed it was Holyfield.

So if there's any heavyweight from the 90s with the skill to get away with fouls, Holy's probably your guy.

 

This is why I think guys like Foreman and Holyfield would always be stylistic nightmares for Tyson. They wouldn't get out of Tyson's way as he bum rushed in with those looping bombs, nor would they pull their head back (which often simply gives Tyson room to follow up for his big combinations or reset). No doubt Tyson was a great fighter in his prime, but he has flaws. A lot of guys in the 80's sort of "complied" with Tyson's style and "followed the script" so to speak. Tyson got annoyed with guys who held their ground, forced him back, and weren't afraid to get their hands dirty mixing it up in the trenches.

 

This is the best way to describe it. Holyfield sometimes either clashed heads because je refused to back off/could get very rough, or because he "accidentally, intentionally" head butt by positioning himself in a way where the ref would give him the benefit of the doubt. Anyone who thinks 100% of his butts were completely accidental is delusional, at least some of them were planned and it's a common trend in several of his fights.

 

Flawed=George Foreman

 

Flawed=literally anyone who put on boxing gloves.

Like a moth to a flame, you have to let everyone know you don't like Foreman even when the thread isn't about him.

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But a guy who didn’t win a twelve round decision for three decades is a special kind of flawed.

 

Foreman also said that Holyfield was the most skilled HW he "ever saw": [url]https://www.boxingnewsandviews.com/2021/08/17/george-foreman-on-the-most-skilled-heavyweight-of-all-time/[/url]

 

what if he knock most his opponent out? that is good reason to not win decision!

 

The head shot then nut shot on Dokes were a nice revamp on the great Peter Jackson’s celebrated 1-2. Concrete evidence that boxing had “evolved”.

What the hell do you even call that - the Heasticle?

Err, no question in my mind, ‘Vander deliberately used the head and it was out and out fouling. Not even a reactionary brain f*rt, - it was literally pre med and part of the strategy.