Holyfield must finally deal with the real

America at Large: He was the first and only man to win the heavyweight championship four times, but then Evander Holyfield was…

America at Large: He was the first and only man to win the heavyweight championship four times, but then Evander Holyfield was also the only man to lose the most coveted title in all of sport on four occasions.

Last Saturday night marked the fifth anniversary of his last night as a champion. In the same ring in which he had made his professional debut 20 years earlier, and a month past his 42nd birthday, Holyfield got himself embarrassed yet again, this time by a light-punching heavyweight named Larry Donald. The bout, buried four deep on the undercard of a Don King-promoted event at Madison Square Garden, was so one-sided that two ringside judges, as well as this observer, scored just one of the 12 rounds for the fading legend. CompuBox statistics, though not always the most reliable barometer of what has taken place in the ring, are in this case instructive: over the 12 rounds Donald landed 260 punches to Holyfield's 78.

Asked afterward whether it had finally come time to call it a day, the old warrior vacillated. He said he intended to "pray on it" before making a decision.

But in the absence of divine intervention, Ron Scott Stevens made the decision for him.

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On Monday morning the chairman of the New York State Athletic Commission (NYSAC) announced he had placed Holyfield on indefinite suspension, citing his "poor performance" in the Donald fight.

"It should be apparent to anyone who follows boxing that Mr Holyfield's skills and reflexes have declined to the point where it is no longer safe for him to continue in the ring," said Stevens as he moved to save Evander from himself.

In the bout against Donald, Holyfield seemed utterly incapable of avoiding jabs and right-hand leads. He admitted afterwards that while he had been able to see every punch Donald threw his way, he had been unable to escape them, which should, on its face, be an indication of deteriorated reflexes.

In his dressing room immediately following the fight, a beaten Holyfield had offered a litany of excuses. He had inexplicably been visited by leg cramps which left him unable to get leverage on his punches. His back had bothered him.

"I don't think age had anything to do with it," said Holyfield. "I can't say what I feel now. It's an emotional time and I don't want to say something until I find out some things. Can we fix my back? Why did I get these cramps?

"I don't care what other people think," Holyfield said. "But I do know that after I think this through, if I believe that I really couldn't do this anymore I would call my own press conference and say it myself. I'm the only one who can. I'm going home to pray on it and I'll decide. I don't want to go in there again unless I can be me. But then who knows except me?"

Ron Scott Stevens, for one.

"This is a medical suspension, but it's really a safety issue," Stevens said on Tuesday morning.

Holyfield has won just two of his last nine fights, and lost his last three, to Chris Byrd, James Toney, and, now, Donald. He hasn't knocked out an opponent since Michael Moorer in 1997. That was his first outing after Mike Tyson bit his ear off earlier that year - and doesn't that seem like ancient history now?

The trophy gained in the second Tyson fight, ironically, came to symbolise his career. Like Clementine, the extraordinarily endowed protagonist of JP Donleavy's The Onion Eaters, Holyfield found himself regularly approached by total strangers wanting a peek at his most distinguishing physical characteristic: "Can I touch it? Do you mind if I take a picture of it?"

The New York suspension will have to be honoured worldwide by members of the Association of Boxing Commissions, leaving Holyfield three options. He could (a) appeal the ruling, and attempt to find medical evidence that would refute the NYSAC's findings; (b) accept it and retire gracefully, or (c) step outside the boundaries of civilisation and continue to fight in an unregulated jurisdiction.

And you know that somewhere in the world there's a slimy promoter and some backwater venue who'd happily stage Holyfield-Tyson III.

Holyfield, by the way, wasn't the only one suspended by the NYSAC on Monday.

John Ruiz's manager/trainer Norman Stone got 60 days and a $1,000 fine for his misbehaviour during Ruiz's come-from-behind win over Andrew Golota in their World Boxing Association title fight. Stone, who had been abusive to referee Randy Neumann throughout the bout, was ejected from the arena with 41 seconds remaining in the eighth round and led away by a phalanx of security guards.

Ruiz, who was floored twice by Golota in the second round, and penalised a point by Neumann in the fourth, had dug himself into a deep hole, but like Chris Byrd, who was also put on the deck in the second by Jameel McCline in their IBF title fight, he battled back to escape with his championship intact.

The last time Golota had been involved in a fight of such controversy at Madison Square Garden - his disqualification against Riddick Bowe eight years ago - it had touched off a mêlée in which his Polish supporters ran amok.

There were no riots at the Garden following the latest Golota loss - an imposing security presence had discouraged that - but throughout the night the constabulary was kept busy putting out brush-fire skirmishes which erupted throughout the crowd. In the late rounds, another intrepid band of Poles picked a fight with the wrong group of Americans - members of the Marine Corps colour guard which had carried the Stars and Strips into the ring for the national anthem - and took an even worse beating than Evander Holyfield for their miscalculation.