The great boxer retired today, aged 51, so here are some of his coolest pictures.
In a tweet that we thought may have come from Slow Sports News, Evander Holyfield has today retired from boxing.
Evander Holyfield officially retires from boxing http://t.co/treSQsykXm
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) June 27, 2014
At 51, and with his last fight three years ago, it is more a case of the sport quitting him rather than him quitting the sport but it brings down the curtain on one of the great boxing careers of the last three decades.
An Olympian in 1984, a world cruiserweight champion and a four time heavyweight champion, Holyfield was involved in virtually all the major storylines of boxing of the 1990s.
He was the man who beat the man who beat the man (taking out Mike Tyson’s conqueror Buster Douglas) to take the undisputed title in 1990 and from there he would fight all the big names of the era, from George Foreman to Michael Moorer, Riddick Bowe to Lennox Lewis, John Ruiz to, of course, Tyson.
Holyfield’s had two fights with Tyson, the first of which he won by TKO in 1996. It is the second one, the bite fight, that is the defining fight people think of when they think of Holyfield. On June 28, 1997, in the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Tyson bit Holyfield on the ears not once but twice, taking a chunk out in the second attempt. Tyson was disqualified and ultimately fined $3m.
While understandable, that incident should not define his career. Always small for a heavyweight, Holyfield was never a KO merchant but he was super tough and wily, far more wily in fact than virtually any other heavyweight in that era.
Sure, in the 2000s he had his ups and downs but even as late 2008 he was unlucky not to win back the WBC belt in a fight against Nikolai Valuev.
We’re glad that at his advanced age Holyfield has hung up his gloves. Enjoy your retirement champ.
