She’s Why He’s a Real Champion

When you think of the heavyweight boxing champion of the world, you picture this swaggering, cocky half-bully, throwing his hate around--John L. Sullivan, pounding on the bar and announcing “I can lick any man in the house!” Muhammad Ali trumpeting, “I am the greatest!” Sonny Liston glowering, “If he runs, I’ll cripple him: If he comes to me, I’ll kill him!”

Then, there’s the now and maybe future king of the heavyweights, Evander Holyfield.

“He’s never raised his voice in his life,” says his promoter, Lou Duva. “I’ve never even heard him say ‘Darn!’ ”

Holyfield never promised to lick any man in the house. Evander lets the other guy do all the boasting, then gets in the ring and gives the guy a lesson in humility.

It is considered axiomatic in the fight game that every fighter, sooner or later, runs into someone he can’t handle, someone as tough as, or tougher than, himself. Sometimes, it’s a matter of clashing styles, but when it happens, a fighter is either made--or fades.

Holyfield met his match very early in life--his mother.

Annie Holyfield would make Jack Johnson look clumsy. She had all the moves. She brought the fight to you. Dempsey could have learned from her. She never took a backward step. She cornered you, she never went into a clinch. Evander remembers. After her, George Foreman was a day at the beach.

Evander was the baby of Annie’s eight children and she didn’t raise him to be a palooka. Mom threw combinations.

“I was brought up where you couldn’t talk back to nobody,” says the current heavyweight champion of the world. “We said, ‘Sir’ and ‘Ma’am’ to anybody who was older. You didn’t say ‘What?’ to anybody. You said ‘Sir?’ Or ‘Pardon me?’ You couldn’t even say ‘Darn!’ with my mama. You got a whuppin’. You didn’t cuss or do what she didn’t think was right. I used to think it was because my mama didn’t like me. Then, one day I knew it was because she loved me.”

Evander couldn’t have learned more from Archie Moore. Even in a fatherless home, he learned patience, forbearance, gentility, dignity. Other people were to tell him how to slip punches, how to handle boxers. Mama Holyfield taught him how to slip phoniness, how to handle life.

It may be why Evander Holyfield has so much trouble gaining credibility as heavyweight champion. He doesn’t act the part. He walks through hotel lobbies by himself. He doesn’t look as if he’s leading a parade. He is so polite, it’s surprising somebody doesn’t hand him the luggage.

When Mike Tyson wanted to fight Buster Douglas for a lucrative payoff in Tokyo, Evander Holyfield didn’t scream or sue, even though he had the contractual rights to the title shot. He stepped aside with a shrug.

“What was I going to do--go through a long, expensive lawsuit?” he asks.

Instead, he simply bided his time.

His graciousness probably robbed the fight game of another “Fight of the Century.” Holyfield-Tyson would have been Dempsey-Tunney, Louis-Schmeling, Jeffries-Johnson. A big betting proposition, a must-see for corporate and blue-collar America, a pugilistic happening.

It might never happen, because Holyfield took the high road.

On the other hand, it resulted in his becoming champion of the world. After Douglas beat Tyson, Holyfield beat Douglas.

It was Mama Holyfield’s influence that made Evander the darling of America’s sports fans at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. Evander was the victim of the most outrageous heists and blatant injustices in the history of the Games.

It happened this way: During the second round of a light-heavyweight semifinal, Holyfield, with a dazzling one-two combination to the body and head, floored and knocked out New Zealander Kevin Barry.

But the Yugoslav referee, unaccountably, stepped in and declared that he had been trying to break a clinch at the time and disqualified Holyfield, declaring Barry the winner, even though they had to wake him up to tell him.

That decision paved the way for the Yugoslav’s countryman to be declared champion and gain the gold medal, because knocked-out fighters such as Barry were forbidden by Olympic rules to fight again for 28 days.

Thanks to his machinations, the referee’s homeboy, Anton Josipovic, won the gold medal by default. Holyfield, the best fighter in the tournament, got the bronze.

Barry was embarrassed by the episode. So much so that he raised Holyfield’s hand as if to spurn his “victory.” But Holyfield simply shook it off.

“My goal was to make the Olympic team,” he says. “And I achieved that. I was proud to wear the robe that said ‘USA’ on the back of it--and when we’d walk through airports in our warmup suits that said ‘U.S. Olympic team’ on them, that was my victory.”

He took his unjust treatment with such sportsmanship that he got more than a gold medal, he got the goodwill and sympathy--and admiration--of the world. He became a folk hero. Even Mama approved.

“Did you do your best?” she asked. “Well, then, you’re a winner.”

The world agreed with her.

Holyfield doesn’t make waves, he makes fights. The last fight he “lost” was that Olympic outrage. He since has defeated everyone they put in front of him.

But the more he wins, the less respect he gets.

“They say I’m too small,” he grins ruefully. “They say I’m just a blown-up light-heavyweight. Hey! Nobody’s born 6-2, 240 pounds. You grow. I grew.”

At 6 foot 2 and 210, Evander thinks he’s big enough for anything sub-King Kong.

“You know what they say?” he reminds you. “ ‘It’s not the size of the man in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the man.’ ”

Holyfield will fight the former champion, Larry Holmes, Friday at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. As usual, lots of people think the 42-year-old Holmes can win. He is louder. He talks more.

Maybe Holyfield could get more credibility if he went around banging on bars or boasting and bragging, making noises, showing disrespect, sneering at his opponent, belittling his skills.

But Mama Holyfield wouldn’t like that. And Evander is more scared of her than he is of Holmes. He should be. She didn’t raise him to be a loudmouth. She raised him to be a champion.