Evander Holyfield Finally Admits He Regrets One Huge Heavyweight Fight: “Never Again”

After becoming undisputed at cruiserweight, ‘The Real Deal’ stepped up to the banner division and first became world heavyweight champion in in October 1990 when he knocked out Buster Douglas inside three rounds.

Holyfield would go on to have 19 world heavyweight title fights, sharing the ring with the likes of Mike Tyson, Lennox Lewis and George Foreman during that time.

It is a non-title fight that sticks out to Holyfield though as being the one that he has regrets about, admitting that he wishes he never had the trilogy bout with Riddick Bowe.

Holyfield and Bowe were level at 1-1 heading into their third bout, with Bowe winning the first fight by unanimous decision in 1992, before Holyfield gained revenge and won by majority decision a year later.

For the trilogy contest, Bowe was the reigning WBO heavyweight champion, but Holyfield didn’t want to challenge for the belt as he thought it could hinder his future chances of competing for the WBC, WBA and IBF belts.

A few weeks out from the fight, Holyfield contracted hepatitis, but he still went ahead with the contest and suffered an eighth round stoppage defeat.

He has now opened up on that incident, admitting that if given the chance again, he wouldn’t go ahead with the fight.

“The doctor told me ‘Evander, you don’t want to go in like that.’ I started saying you don’t understand that’s 9 million dollars. I had never pulled out of a fight a day in my life. I had already trained 10 weeks and only had 3 more weeks.

He was telling me this stuff would mess with me for a week, I said I’ve got 2 weeks until the fight. That’s the way I thought. I didn’t ever want to pull out.

I was looking at all the fighters and said I want to be the fighter that did everything right. I want to do the very best that I could. Doing the very best I could but I got tore up that time. I said ‘I’m never doing that again’, if I’m sick again I’m out of there.”

Holyfield finally retired in 2011 with a record of 44 wins, 10 defeats, 2 draws and 1 no contest, and he recently explained why he feels his accolades make him the greatest of all time.