Evander Holyfield opens up about Mike Tyson infamously biting his ear off during their 1997 boxing fight
'The Real Deal' says Iron Mike resorted to the drastic action of two bites because he knew he could not win the fight
EVANDER HOLYFIELD says the reason Mike Tyson bit his ear 20 years ago was because the then ‘baddest man on the planet’ was afraid and looking for a way out.
Holyfield always knew he could beat Tyson in that infamous fight of 1997, despite the boxing public favouring Iron Mike for the victory.
Speaking to journalist Carlos Zulbaran at the 55th annual WBC convention in Baku, Azerbaijan, Holyfield said: "They said I wasn't as good because I had not defeated Tyson.
"But I was not afraid of anybody.
"We fought and I stopped him, so we went back to do it again and he bit me twice in the same fight.
"I knew I could beat him."
Holyfield and Tyson fought twice. The first fight Holyfield was able to stop Tyson in the 11th round in 1996.
Then a year later came the infamous night where Tyson bit Holyfield’s ear twice bringing the fight to an end with a disqualification.
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Holyfield compared Tyson that night to himself when he was a child fighting his older brothers.
He explained how he would bite them and run because he was scared, and that’s just what Tyson did that night.
He added: "With those bites I understood that Mike was afraid because when you do something like that, it's because you want to run and not fight.
"When I fought with my brothers, I would bite them and then run, so it was the same situation. Biting me was the easiest way out of the fight.
"People keep talking about that fight [from 1997]. But even in the amateurs many wondered what would have happened if we had faced each other.
"We both wanted to go to the 1984 Olympics but nobody remembers that.
"At some point we did some sparring, he was 20 and I was 21. At home I was always the smallest and when I wanted to do something they said I couldn't because I was the smallest.
"So when I was with him in the ring, in my mind I had it set that I could not lose to someone else."
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