On April 22nd, 1994, Evander Holyfield lost the heavyweight title for the second time when he came up on the wrong end of a majority decision in a fight against Michael Moorer at Caesars Palace. More than a year elapsed before he would make his next foray into the ring, a non-title bout against Ray Mercer.
Although the match-up was of somewhat less than earth-shaking consequence, my sports editor at the time dispatched me to cover it. "We have to cover Holyfield every time he fights," he said in announcing a policy that has endured to this day.
Holyfield has fought 11 times since, and we've covered all but one of those. The exception, a defence against the unthreatening Vaughn Bean in Atlanta three years ago, was scheduled in direct opposition to the Oscar De La Hoya-Julio Cesar Chavez rematch in Las Vegas.
Boxing history will rank Holyfield among its more courageous champions, but that isn't why our attendance has been mandatory at his recitals. Nor have we religiously followed Holyfield around the country because he is the only man to have won the heavyweight championship four times, though he is.
The policy, which has endured through two regimes at my newspaper, was explained to me in no uncertain terms that day nearly seven years ago. "If Holyfield dies in the ring," the sports editor told me, "I don't want to rely on the wires to cover it."
Following the Moorer loss, Holyfield had been taken to a Las Vegas hospital, where it was discovered that he was suffering from a previously undetected heart malady - a "non-compliant left ventricle".
It was widely assumed that his boxing career was over, but once Evander got the itch to fight again, the heart suddenly got better. He underwent an extensive battery of tests at the famed Mayo Clinic, where doctors could find no evidence of the malady.
The cardiac experts in Minnesota surmised that the original diagnosis must have been flawed. The patient claims that the defect was real enough, but that he had cured it through prayer in the company of a faith-healer.
Holyfield hardly looked a world-beater in eking out a points decision over Mercer that spring, but it was enough to justify a rubber match against Riddick Bowe later that year. The Nevada commission sanctioned the bout only after requiring Holyfield to submit to yet another battery of medical tests.
In the third fight of their trilogy, Holyfield had Bowe on the floor in the sixth round, but was himself dropped twice in the eighth on the way to the only stoppage loss of his career.
He wasn't done yet, though. He came back the next summer to fight Bobby Czyz, and looked so awful in the five rounds Czyz lasted that Mike Tyson agreed to fight him.
The rest, of course, is history. Holyfield walked right through Tyson in their first fight, stopping him in the 11th round, and in the rematch was so thoroughly dominating the so-called "baddest man on the planet" that Tyson turned into a serial cannibal, enthusiastically biting Holyfield once on each ear on his way to disqualification.
The point is this: if we were genuinely concerned for Evander Holyfield's safety in 1994, what does it say about the state of his health that he is still fighting, at nearly 39 years of age, seven years later?
Holyfield is 1-2-1 since 1998, and he could easily have lost all four fights. The one win, against John Ruiz last year, came on a decision so controversial that the World Boxing Association ordered an immediate rematch. The "draw" came in his first fight against Lennox Lewis, although virtually everyone in Madison Square Garden save IBF judge Eugenia Williams believed Lewis had won.
Holyfield is back for more on Saturday when he meets Ruiz in the finale of their trilogy. The WBA title fight was originally scheduled for Beijing last summer, but was postponed after the champion conveniently sustained a neck injury, one which probably saved promoter Don King millions.
It was rescheduled for the Chinese capital for the fall, but after the events of September 11th, HBO (which is underwriting the bout to the tune of $5 million), citing US State Department guidelines, declined to send a broadcast team to a nation sharing a border with Afghanistan, and King was obliged to secure a domestic venue - in this case, the bingo hall at Foxwoods Casino, on an Indian tribal reservation in the Connecticut woods.
Holyfield's Atlanta-based attorney, friend, and boxing advisor, Jim Thomas, discounts speculation that the ancient warrior may be going to the well once too often this weekend.
"He may be in better shape than any man in history; he's always in good shape. He never drank, never used drugs, never abused himself in any way," Thomas told a Los Angeles newspaper earlier this week.
"And," said Thomas, "he's probably been the most medically tested man in boxing history. I think the guy most likely to get hurt is John Ruiz. No one is telling him he should quit."
Holyfield's stated rationale in continuing to box is that he wants to retire the way he started out in the heavyweight business - as undisputed champion. The way he views it, Ruiz's WBA title is but a stepping stone to the real prize - a fight against the Lewis-Tyson winner for all the marbles. He may be deluding himself in believing he can defeat Lewis, but he knows he can beat Tyson.
There may, however, be yet another reason for continuing to expose himself to danger: he needs the money.
Holyfield has made millions out of the fight game, but he has endured two very expensive divorces, and his apparently voracious sexual appetite has probably been a drain on his finances as well: he has acknowledged having fathered nine children by six different women.
Lewis once described the Bible-thumping Holyfield as a "hypocrite" for this apparent dichotomy, prompting the since-vanquished Hasim Rahman to wonder aloud: "How many babies do Lennox have?"
Before one of the Lewis fights, Holyfield shrugged off the apparent disparity in physical size by noting that "Lennox is a man. He puts his trousers on one leg at a time, just like me."
"That's true," I pointed out. "He just doesn't do it quite as often."
