LAS VEGAS – You can never go broke betting on boxing as long as you faithfully bet on the sport’s one truism: that everyone who fights for a living will fight for too long.
In the long history of gloved mayhem, only two professional boxers can honestly be said to have walked away at the right time: Rocky Marciano and Gene Tunney.
Both quit after victories, and both quit with their titles firmly in their own possession.
Marciano died young, Tunney lived a long, prosperous and bibulous life.
And except for the plane crash that took Marciano’s life at 46 years old, both would have gone down in history as two of the rarest examples in sports, boxers who did it right.
Which brings us to the case of Evander Holyfield.
Up to March 13, 1999, Holyfield, too, had done everything right.
He had won the heavyweight title three times, defended it with honor every time out, never sent the fans home asking for their money back. Arguably, he was going to go down as one of the top five heavyweight champions in boxing history.
And thanks to the Fort Knox that is pay-per-view television, he was never going to end up needing someone to throw a benefit for him, even with two ex-wives, nine children and an extracurricular sex life that made Hugh Hefner look like St. Francis of Assissi.
Most important, from all accounts, his mind had kept up with his freakishly magnificent body, a body that had carried him through more wars than perhaps any heavyweight of any era.
“He’s the most examined athlete in the world,” said Jim Thomas, Holyfield’s attorney. “Since I’ve known him, there’s been no change in his baseline. His EKG, his EEG, his blood work, everything has stayed the same. It’s incredible.”
But on March 13, 1999, Holyfield, looking great on graph paper and in the flesh, suddenly got old in the Madison Square Garden ring against Lennox Lewis, a fighter he would have run out of the building a few years earlier.
The judges gave him a break on that one, boxing’s equivalent of the Papal Dispensation.
In the rematch eight months later, Holyfield looked eight months older – and still nearly won.
But he didn’t, and that would have been the perfect time for Holyfield to take inventory of his titles, his money, and his marbles and walked away with all three reasonably intact.
Which brings us to tomorrow night, when Holyfield, two months shy of his 38th birthday, will climb into the ring once again, against John Ruiz, who is nowhere near Holyfield’s class or ability.
He is, however, 10 years younger, and in this game, that is often more than enough.
One of these nights, Evander Holyfield is going to get beat, and badly, by a boxer who doesn’t even deserve to be in the same arena with him unless he bought his way in.
Sooner or later, they all do, and in the case of 37-year-old fighters, it is usually sooner.
For Holyfield, it might even be as soon as tomorrow, although there is nothing in John Ruiz’ record or demeanor to indicate he has the slightest chance of winning their scheduled 12-round bout for the vacant WBA heavyweight title.
The only thing on Ruiz’ side is time. He’s got plenty of it. Holyfield’s is running out.
And then there are the odds, which favor Holyfield by 7-2. Shouldn’t a former champion of Holyfield’s credentials be favored by something like 10-1 over a relative novice who in his only real test got blown out in 19 seconds – NINETEEN SECONDS! – by David Tua?
Does somebody know something that we don’t?
More important, does somebody know something that Holyfield doesn’t?
“I’m taking this seriously, very seriously,” Holyfield said yesterday in his 26th-floor suite at the Paris Hotel, the World of Neon’s a facsimile of the City of Light. “There’s never been a fighter who didn’t fight better when he fought me. That’s why I’m taking this guy seriously.”
And yet, Holyfield’s suite was as busy as Chelsea Piers, with an eight-ball tournament commencing on the small table in the oversized living room, music videos blasting from the big-screen TV, and another half-dozen people chowing down in the attached dining room.
Nobody seemed to be very concerned with anything other than the in-room entertainment, and even Holyfield needed to be virtually pried away from a small group of reporters in order to get in one more workout before yesterday afternoon’s weigh-in.
The look and feel was more that of a vacation house than the training headquarters of a professional boxer, and but then, maybe the foundation had already been laid at Holyfield’s gym in Houston, and in truth, perhaps Holyfield does not need to train for John Ruiz the way he had for Lewis or Mike Tyson.
But even when fighting a John Ruiz, there is a difference between being in shape and being in boxing shape.
As Joe Liebling wrote before Joe Louis, another one who stuck around much too long, stepped in against the 10 years younger Marciano, “a superbly conditioned man of 37 is still young. It’s when he gets into the ring that age comes upon him.”
Will age drop upon Holyfield tomorrow night like a heavy, wet blanket, dulling his once great reflexes and reducing the cosmetically impressive muscles to a useless illusion?
If so, it won’t matter if the opponent is John Ruiz or Jack Dempsey.
Just like that, the sand in Holyfield’s hourglass will have run out.
Win or lose, he is already taking this fight for all the wrong reasons.
Although the WBA, in the infinite corruption of its wisdom, saw fit to strip Lewis of its belt for his decision to fight Michael Grant instead of Ruiz, only tomorrow night’s winner could have the gall to refer to himself as the heavyweight champion of the world.
Certainly, Holyfield, who is 0-1-1 against Lewis, can’t truly believe a win over Ruiz puts him on equal footing with the man who should really have two wins over him.
“Well, why wouldn’t it?,” Holyfield said.”If you don’t follow the rules, this is what happens to you. Ali got stripped. Foreman got stripped. Tyson got stripped. Bowe got stripped. What makes Lennox Lewis think he’s bigger than the game? Besides, I beat him the second time. I just didn’t get the decision.”
Even if you agree that Holyfield deserved to win the rematch – and I scored it for him by two points -the fact is that officially, he lost that night to Lewis.
And, unofficially, you can also bet that Lewis will never fight Holyfield for a third time. Win, lose or tainted draw, Lewis has already been life-and-death with Holyfield in two fights. Most of the world is satisfied that he won both. Why risk it again when there is a big-money fight with Mike Tyson out there for him?
“The only reason for Lennox to fight us again,” said Jim Thomas, Holyfield’s attorney, “is money.”
That, too, may be the only reason Holyfield is fighting Ruiz. According to Thomas, his recent divorce from Dr. Janice Itson cost him “a lot more than it should have, and a lot less than it could have.”
Or, he may see the fight as a stepping stone back to Lewis, or even a third match against Tyson, if the HBO/Showtime deadlock that is blocking a Lewis-Tyson showdown cannot be broken.
All he knows for sure is a win over Ruiz obligates Holyfield to fight 6-foot-8 Wladimir Klitschko within 120 days.
“If that’s what the rules say, I’ll fight Klitschko,” Holyfield said. “That’s no big deal. I’m not afraid of him.”
Fear, of course, was never Holyfield’s problem. The lack of fear, however, may now be.
As Angelo Dundee recalled yesterday, 22 years ago he begged Muhammad Ali to train, just a little bit, for an upcoming fight against a kid whom no one was giving a chance.
“Angie, you think a kid with seven pro fights can beat me?,” Ali said. They both laughed.
A couple of nights later, they were both crying when Leon Spinks won fight No. 8, battering and embarrassing the greatest heavyweight of all time.
Holyfield does not believe such a thing could happen to him, but then, none of them ever do.
But it happens all the time, to the best of them.
You may not be able to bet on John Ruiz, but you can bet on this:
Someday soon, it will happen to Evander Holyfield, too.
