Evander Holyfield is in the history books as the first man to become undisputed at both cruiserweight and heavyweight during a 27-year professional career.
Holyfield fought and beat the likes of Mike Tyson, Hasim Rahman, Larry Holmes and Riddick Bowe. He would fall short on just ten occasions in a 57-fight campaign.
Other than a best forgotten exhibition against Vitor Belfort in 2021 in which Holyfield was stopped in one round, the two-time undisputed champion has remained out of the ring since his final win against Denmark’s Brian Nielson in 2011.
In that same year, Holyfield was sparring with a 19-year-old Andy Ruiz Jr. He said the younger man’s workrate and speed was a driving factor behind hanging up the gloves.
“When I sparred that guy Ruiz and when he was 19 years old he was able to tag me, I knew then [it was over]. I don’t pass my age range where it no longer makes sense to get hit like that by somebody you think you should be able to beat, because experience and all this, but he had speed and I was losing speed.”
In a seperate interview, Holyfield detailed the competitive rounds, which he summed up as youth versus experience.
“When we were sparring, every day he did the same thing … He was aggressive then. It kind of embarrassed me a little bit. I thought, ‘I’m a champ and you chasing me like this?’ I learned from it. They say youth is your strength when you’re that age, when you get older it’s your experience. I was able to do some things that he couldn’t do.”
Although Ruiz had a close loss against Joseph Parker in 2016 for the vacant WBO World Heavyweight Title, he truly burst onto the scene with an upset victory over Anthony Joshua three years later.
Drafted in as a late replacement opponent, Ruiz survived a knockdown from the big-punching Brit to land a flurry of punches that staggered turned the fight on its head. ‘AJ’ was stopped in the seventh round and Ruiz made history as the first Mexican-American heavyweight champion of the world.
Ruiz would lose the rematch convincingly on points and has had a frustrating stop-start campaign since. Wins over Chris Arreola and Luis Ortiz came over a year apart and, last October, he drew with Jarrell Miller – the man he replaced in the Joshua bout back in 2019 – suffering a broken hand early and being considered lucky to get away without a loss.
Earlier this year he announced that he has had the ‘green light’ to return, however many fans question his desire.
