Evander Holyfield faced a who’s who of heavyweight royalty after dominating the cruiserweight ranks, including Mike Tyson and Lennox Lewis.
He had a pair of fights with both men, beating Tyson by stoppage and then disqualification but scoring a controversial draw with Lewis before being beaten over the distance in the return bout.
Despite both Tyson and Lewis being regarded as two of the most powerful punchers the division has ever seen, Holyfield has three other names that topped them.
Speaking on The Big Podcast With Shaq, Holyfield first said George Foreman was the biggest puncher he faced.
“Of course George Foreman. [It felt like] something fell on me. Like something fall on your toe. Bam! You feel it, but here I am trying to act like it was nothing.
“My people are telling me come on back, the bell rung, but my legs are stuck. I knew if I move I was gonna just fall on my face. This is gonna make George kill me the next round. I was always trying to not let the guy know that he hurt me.”
Holyfield fought Foreman when the latter was 42-years-old in 1991, winning by unanimous decision with scores of 116-111, 115-112 and 117-110. It was ‘Big’ George’s first attempt at the heavyweight title since his decade long retirement. Though he failed that night, he would later beat Michael Moorer at 45 to achieve his goal of becoming the division’s oldest world champion.
After retaining his undisputed status against Bert Cooper and Larry Holmes, Holyfield would lose the belts to Riddick Bowe. The pair had a trilogy of fights, with the ‘Real Deal’ on the losing end twice but winning the middle affair.
He considers ‘Big Daddy’ another of the hardest hitters he has faced.
“Riddick Bowe. He did knock me down. He’s the one that gave me more trouble than anybody,”
Finally, Holyfield looked further back to his cruiserweight days and his split decision victory over Dwight Muhammad Qawi, giving an insight of just how brutal 15-round fights could be – particularly when you had been hurt early.
“But, there’s another fight that that I fought that was super tough – Dwight Muhammad Qawi. They threw me in that fight. I had to go fifteen rounds and I’d never been past eight … He made me mad [pre-fight] cause he embarrassed me by grabbing me by the neck in front of the people. My momma saw it on TV.
“Getting in this fight, I’m gonna try to get him. I jumped out there and the first three rounds I was on him. Fourth round he started hitting me with those big shots. He hit me so doggone hard all of a sudden I remember the fifteenth round. All the other rounds slipped. I didn’t know how the fight was. And then the raised my hand.”
Holyfield would stop Qawi in their rematch.
