WHAT IF TYSON HAD FOUGHT HOLYFIELD IN 1991?

Published

9 years ago

November 4, 2015

There are a lot of “What if?” situations in boxing, making for some interesting debates.

One of the more recent involved the May 2 matchup of Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao, a megafight many believe would have been much more compelling had it happened, say, five years earlier. When the aging superstars finally did square off, the 38-year-old Mayweather scored a rather easy unanimous decision over the 36-year-old Pacquiao, but what might have happened had they swapped punches in 2010, when the pairing would have taken place in the full bloom of their respective primes? Mayweather supporters insist that their guy would have won in much the same manner that he eventually did, but Pacquiao diehards will never be convinced that “PacMan” wouldn’t have fared far better had he not been kept waiting so long.

Which brings us to two equally and maybe even more intriguing dates in boxing history, separated by five years and one day, and a Grand Canyon’s worth of speculation. Nov. 8, 1991, was when WBA/IBF heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield and former champ Mike Tyson were to have clashed in one of the most eagerly anticipated bouts of all time. But Tyson sustained an injury to his left rib cage on Oct. 7, and the fight was postponed on Oct. 18. It was tentatively rescheduled for sometime in January 1992, in the hope it could be squeezed in before Tyson’s rape trial in Indianapolis, which was to begin on Jan. 27.

But Tyson’s sore ribs didn’t heal quickly enough and, well, we all know what happened. Tyson was convicted of rape, served three years of a six-year sentence in an Indiana prison and his confrontation with Holyfield didn’t happen until Nov. 9, 1996, when Holyfield – an opening-line 25-1 underdog (he went off as a more reasonable 10-1 longshot) shocked the world, or at least a large portion of it, by scoring an 11th-round technical knockout, dominating almost from the opening bell. The rematch, on June 28, 1997, was setting up to be more of the same when an enraged and frustrated Tyson chomped on Holyfield’s ears, resulting in his third-round disqualification.

Inquiring minds, of which I like to believe I have, were left to wonder what the outcome would have been had Holyfield and Tyson met on the originally scheduled date in 1991. Even though Tyson no longer was undefeated – he had lost his titles on that 10th-round knockout loss to Buster Douglas on Feb. 11, 1990, in Tokyo – he had strung together four victories, three inside the distance, and, at 41-1 with 36 KOs, was an opening-line 2-1 favorite over Holyfield (then 26-0, 21 KOs), who had dethroned Douglas on a third-round knockout on Oct. 25, 1990.

It was to have been a prime-on-prime confrontation with Holyfield having recently turned 29 and Tyson still a young, strong bull at 25. So why was Holyfield such a prohibitive underdog five years later? Well, he was just 4-3 in his preceding seven fights and was coming off a winning but unimpressive victory over Bobby Czyz on May 10, 1996, in Madison Square Garden. The widespread feeling then was that he was too used up to offer anything more than token resistance to the still-scary Tyson.

All of which points to one irrefutable fact: Boxing matches are won in the ring, not on paper. Styles count. Intangibles do, too. Maybe the Tyson of 1991 would have presented too steep of a hill for Holyfield to climb, and maybe the outcome of their later two meetings would have been the same. To help sort things out, I polled seven knowledgeable boxing people as to how Tyson-Holyfield, circa 1991, might have turned out had Tyson not injured his ribs or attended that beauty pageant in Indianapolis that led to his incarceration. The panelists include trainer Tommy Brooks, who at various times worked with both Tyson and Holyfield; former heavyweight champion George Foreman, who lost to Holyfield but never fought Tyson, although he wanted to; Nigel Collins, former editor of The Ring magazine; Steve Farhood, another former editor of The Ring, now a Showtime commentator; Larry Hazzard, then and now the head of the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board; veteran boxing writer Michael Katz (a 2012 inductee into the International Boxing Hall of Fame), and Ron Borges, Boston Herald sports columnist and the only media member of 49 polled who picked Holyfield to beat Tyson in 1996.

Their consensus opinion, in retrospect, might or not come as a surprise.

TOMMY BROOKS: “If that fight had gone off as planned in 1991, it would have been the same outcome as the one five years later. Evander just had Tyson’s number. Sometimes that’s just the way it is. Now, to me, both are beautiful kids and tremendous athletes. I’m glad I had the opportunity to work with them each of them. But sometimes one guy has something that gives him an edge over another guy of similar ability. Evander had the right style to fight Mike, and he had that incredible mental strength as well. I hear the same kind of talk about Mayweather and Pacquiao, what might or might not have happened if they fought five years earlier. I’m pretty sure it would have gone down the same way. Floyd had Pacquiao’s number and always would have had it, like Evander had with Mike.”

GEORGE FOREMAN: “Not only in hindsight, but even as I saw it then Mike Tyson wasn’t the best fighter in the world against guys that were not that big. He had an advantage, and I guess he got that from Cus D’Amato, against real big guys. He would hit them as hard as he could to the body, come back and touch them a little bit and then come on top with a shot to the temple and knock them out. That works with big, tall guys. But he didn’t really have the mechanics to beat guys more his own size. Holyfield didn’t hit as hard as Tyson, but he was so quick with combinations. He would have beaten Tyson then or later. That’s all there is to it.”

NIGEL COLLINS: “I think at the very top level of boxing, there is very little difference between the elites as far as the talent level goes. The secret to winning at that level is having a strong mind. Evander Holyfield could have fought Mike Tyson at any time in their careers and would have won 99 times out of 100 because he had such a strong belief in himself. After their first fight (the one in 1996), I went to (trainer) Don Turner’s house to watch the tape. Don commented on what was happening, and I turned that into a story. At one point he told me, `I can tell most fighters how to beat the other guy, but some don’t have the balls to do it. Evander does.’ And that pretty much sums it up. Really, there were only four or five years when Tyson was a truly great heavyweight. Holyfield had a much longer career at the top. Personally, I’m very fond of Tyson and always enjoyed covering him. But Holyfield will go down in history as the superior fighter.”

STEVE FARHOOD: “When they had the press conference to announce the (1991) fight, they tried to pose Holyfield and Tyson for one of those nose-to-nose staredowns. Both guys couldn’t stop giggling, maybe because they knew each other from their amateur days. This was at a time when Tyson still had that aura and was scaring everybody half to death. I think that moment was very revealing. Evander was not afraid of Tyson. That much was obvious. Look, if they had fought then, I certainly think Tyson would have done better than he subsequently did. The 1996 version of Tyson was severely diminished. In 1991, Tyson would have been much closer to his prime and he would have had more energy and skill, as opposed to ’96. But that said, we’re talking about an all-time great in Holyfield. It would be really hard to pick Tyson to win, knowing what we subsequently learned. I would pick Holyfield by decision, but I think it would be a very competitive fight, certainly more competitive than the two fights they had years later.”

LARRY HAZZARD: Five years earlier, based on what we saw (in 1996 and ’97), I don’t think the outcome would have been any different. Evander Holyfield, in my opinion, was always an equal of Mike Tyson, and maybe more than that. I actually picked Holyfield to beat Tyson in 1996, although I wouldn’t have said it publicly because of my position with the (New Jersey) commission. Everybody I did tell, though, thought I was crazy. My friend Butch Lewis, Denzel Washington and a couple more of those Hollywood types were at Butch’s house were at Butch’s house to watch the fight. I called Butch up and said, `Hey, Butch, you tell all the guys that are sitting there with you that Holyfield is going to win.’ Butch said, `Larry, you must have lost your bleepin’ mind.’ They were all laughing at me. When the fight was over and Holyfield had stopped Tyson, you couldn’t convince those guys that I didn’t have some kind of inside information. But it was just a feeling I had. I never saw a fighter that had as much heart as Evander Holyfield.”

MICHAEL KATZ: “I think it would have gone down the same way it eventually went down. The day they announced the fight (in 1991) I was in Virginia Beach for, I assume, a Pernell Whitaker fight. Holyfield was there. I interviewed him in his room. He had absolutely no hesitation about fighting Tyson; he was as calm and as sure of winning as I’ve ever seen any athlete. I think he knew all along what would happen. It was like a big brother, little brother kind of thing, that he was the man and Tyson was the boy. He knew he could take Tyson’s best shots and Tyson couldn’t take his. Later that day, word came that Tyson was under arrest in Indianapolis for some kind of sex thing.”

RON BORGES: “Oh, sure, there are a lot of people who say know that they always knew Holyfield would beat Tyson. Back then (in 1996), nobody thought Holyfield had a chance. There was a lot of talk after his fight with Czyz that Holyfield was damaged good and shouldn’t even be allowed to fight Tyson. I had a little inside information because I was fairly close to Holyfield during those years. One of the things I knew, dating back to to when Holyfield and Tyson were amateurs, was the pool table incident. Vinny Pazienza was Tyson’s roommate at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado in 1984. One night they were all playing pool and it was one of those deals where if you lost, you gave up the table. Tyson lost and it was Holyfield’s turn to play. Tyson tried to bully him. Vinny was there and saw the whole thing. Holyfield walked up to Tyson, didn’t say a word and took the cue stick from him. Tyson left the room and nobody saw him for the rest of the night. I always had this image in the back of my mind that Tyson knew if there was one guy he couldn’t intimidate, it was Evander Holyfield.”

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Bernard Fernandez

TSS Salutes Thomas Hauser and his Bernie Award Cohorts

Published

2 days ago

April 16, 2025

TSS Press

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The Boxing Writers Association of America has announced the winners of its annual Bernie Awards competition. The awards, named in honor of former five-time BWAA president and frequent TSS contributor Bernard Fernandez, recognize outstanding writing in six categories as represented by stories published the previous year.

Over the years, this venerable website has produced a host of Bernie Award winners. In 2024, Thomas Hauser kept the tradition alive. A story by Hauser that appeared in these pages finished first in the category “Boxing News Story.” Titled “Ryan Garcia and the New York State Athletic Commission,” the story was published on June 23. You can read it HERE.

Hauser also finished first in the category of “Investigative Reporting” for “The Death of Ardi Ndembo,” a story that ran in the (London) Guardian. (Note: Hauser has owned this category. This is his 11^th first place finish for “Investigative Reporting”.)

Thomas Hauser, who entered the International Boxing Hall of Fame with the class of 2019, was honored at last year’s BWAA awards dinner with the A.J. Leibling Award for Outstanding Boxing Writing. The list of previous winners includes such noted authors as W.C. Heinz, Budd Schulberg, Pete Hamill, and George Plimpton, to name just a few.

The Leibling Award is now issued intermittently. The most recent honorees prior to Hauser were Joyce Carol Oates (2015) and Randy Roberts (2019).

Roberts, a Distinguished Professor of History at Purdue University, was tabbed to write the Hauser/Leibling Award story for the glossy magazine for BWAA members published in conjunction with the organization’s annual banquet. Regarding Hauser’s most well-known book, his Muhammad Ali biography, Roberts wrote, “It is nearly impossible to overestimate the importance of the book to our understanding of Ali and his times.” An earlier book by Hauser, “The Black Lights: Inside the World of Professional Boxing,” garnered this accolade: “Anyone who wants to understand boxing today should begin by reading ‘The Black Lights’.”

A panel of six judges determined the Bernie Award winners for stories published in 2024. The stories they evaluated were stripped of their bylines and other identifying marks including the publication or website for which the story was written.

Other winners:

Boxing Event Coverage: Tris Dixon

Boxing Column: Kieran Mulvaney

Boxing Feature (Over 1,500 Words): Lance Pugmire

Boxing Feature (Under 1,500 Words): Chris Mannix

The Dixon, Mulvaney, and Pugmire stories appeared in Boxing Scene; the Mannix story in Sports Illustrated.

The Bernie Award recipients will be honored at the forthcoming BWAA dinner on April 30 at the Edison Ballroom in the heart of Times Square. (For more information, visit the BWAA website). Two days after the dinner, an historic boxing tripleheader will be held in Times Square, the logistics of which should be quite interesting. Ryan Garcia, Devin Haney, and Teofimo Lopez share top billing.

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Mekhrubon Sanginov, whose Heroism Nearly Proved Fatal, Returns on Saturday

Published

3 days ago

April 15, 2025

Arne K. Lang

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To say that Mekhrubon Sanginov is excited to resume his boxing career would be a great understatement. Sanginov, ranked #9 by the WBA at 154 pounds before his hiatus, last fought on July 8, 2022.

He was in great form before his extended leave, having scored four straight fast knockouts, advancing his record to 13-0-1. Had he remained in Las Vegas, where he had settled after his fifth pro fight, his career may have continued on an upward trajectory, but a trip to his hometown of Dushanbe, Tajikistan, turned everything haywire. A run-in with a knife-wielding bully nearly cost him his life, stalling his career for nearly three full years.

Sanginov was exiting a restaurant in Dushanbe when he saw a man, plainly intoxicated, harassing another man, an innocent bystander. Mekhrubon intervened and was stabbed several times with a long knife. One of the puncture wounds came perilously close to puncturing his heart.

“After he stabbed me, I ran after him and hit him and caught him to hold for the police,” recollects Sanginov. “There was a lot of confusion when the police arrived. At first, the police were not certain what had happened.

“By the time I got to the hospital, I had lost two liters of blood, or so I was told. After I was patched up, one of the surgeons said to me, ‘Give thanks to God because he gave you a second life.’ It is like I was born a second time.”

“I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It could have happened in any city,” he adds. (A story about the incident on another boxing site elicited this comment from a reader: “Good man right there. World would be a better place if more folk were willing to step up when it counts.”)

Sanginov first laced on a pair of gloves at age 10 and was purportedly 105-14 as an amateur. Growing up, the boxer he most admired was Roberto Duran. “Muhammad Ali will always be the greatest and [Marvin] Hagler was great too, but Duran was always my favorite,” he says.

During his absence from the ring, Sanginov married a girl from Tajikistan and became a father. His son Makhmud was born in Las Vegas and has dual citizenship. “Ideally,” he says, “I would like to have three more children. Two more boys and the last one a daughter.”

He also put on a great deal of weight. When he returned to the gym, his trainer Bones Adams was looking at a cruiserweight. But gradually the weight came off – “I had to give up one of my hobbies; I love to eat,” he says – and he will be resuming his career at 154. “Although I am the same weight as before, I feel stronger now. Before I was more of a boy, now I am a full-grown man,” says Sanginov who turned 29 in February.

He has a lot of rust to shed. Because of all those early knockouts, he has answered the bell for only eight rounds in the last four years. Concordantly, his comeback fight on Saturday could be described as a soft re-awakening. Sanginov’s opponent Mahonri Montes, an 18-year pro from Mexico, has a decent record (36-10-2, 25 KOs) but has been relatively inactive and is only 1-3-1 in his last five. Their match at Thunder Studios in Long Beach, California, is slated for eight rounds.

On May 10, Ardreal Holmes (17-0) faces Erickson Lubin (26-2) on a ProBox card in Kissimmee, Florida. It’s an IBF super welterweight title eliminator, meaning that the winner (in theory) will proceed directly to a world title fight.

Sanginov will be watching closely. He and Holmes were scheduled to meet in March of 2022 in the main event of a ShoBox card on Showtime. That match fell out when Sanginov suffered an ankle injury in sparring.

If not for a twist of fate, that may have been Mekhrubon Sanginov in that IBF eliminator, rather than Ardreal Holmes. We will never know, but one thing we do know is that Mekhrubon’s world title aspirations were too strong to be ruined by a knife-wielding bully.

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Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis Wins Welterweight Showdown in Atlantic City

Published

5 days ago

April 12, 2025

David A. Avila

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In the showdown between undefeated welterweight champions Jaron “Boots Ennis walked away with the victory by technical knockout over Eamantis Stanionis and the WBA and IBF titles on Saturday.

No doubt. Ennis was the superior fighter.

“He’s a great fighter. He’s a good guy,” said Ennis.

Philadelphia’s Ennis (34-0, 30 KOs) faced Lithuania’s Stanionis (15-1, 10 KOs) at demonstrated an overpowering southpaw and orthodox attack in front of a sold-out crowd at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

It might have been confusing but whether he was in a southpaw stance or not Ennis busted the body with power shots and jabbed away in a withering pace in the first two rounds.

Stanionis looked surprised when his counter shots seemed impotent.

In the third round the Lithuanian fighter who trains at the Wild Card Gym in Hollywood, began using a rocket jab to gain some semblance of control. Then he launched lead rights to the jaw of Ennis. Though Stanionis connected solidly, the Philly fighter was still standing and seemingly unfazed by the blows.

That was a bad sign for Stanionis.

Ennis returned to his lightning jabs and blows to the body and Stanionis continued his marauding style like a Sherman Tank looking to eventually run over his foe. He just couldn’t muster enough firepower.

In the fifth round Stanionis opened up with a powerful body attack and seemed to have Ennis in retreat. But the Philadelphia fighter opened up with a speedy combination that ended with blood dripping from the nose of Stanionis.

It was not looking optimistic for the Lithuanian fighter who had never lost.

Stanionis opened up the sixth round with a three-punch combination and Ennis met him with a combination of his own. Stanionis was suddenly in retreat and Ennis chased him like a leopard pouncing on prey. A lightning five-punch combination that included four consecutive uppercuts delivered Stanionis to the floor for the count. He got up and survived the rest of the round.

After returning shakily to his corner, the trainer whispered to him and then told the referee that they had surrendered.

Ennis jumped in happiness and now holds the WBA and IBF welterweight titles.

“I felt like I was getting in my groove. I had a dream I got a stoppage just like this,” said Ennis.

Stanionis looked like he could continue, but perhaps it was a wise move by his trainer. The Lithuanian fighter’s wife is expecting their first child at any moment.

Meanwhile, Ennis finally proved the expectations of greatness by experts. It was a thorough display of superiority over a very good champion.

“The biggest part was being myself and having a live body in front of me,” said Ennis. “I’m just getting started.”

Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn was jubilant over the performance of the Philadelphia fighter.

“What a wonderful humble man. This is one of the finest fighters today. By far the best fighter in the division,” said Hearn. “You are witnessing true greatness.”

Other Bouts

Former featherweight world champion Raymond Ford (17-1-1, 8 KOs) showed that moving up in weight would not be a problem even against the rugged and taller Thomas Mattice (22-5-1, 17 KOs) in winning by a convincing unanimous decision.

The quicksilver southpaw Ford ravaged Mattice in the first round then basically cruised the remaining nine rounds like a jackhammer set on automatic. Four-punch combinations pummeled Mattice but never put him down.

“He was a smart veteran. He could take a hit,” said Ford.

Still, there was no doubt on who won the super featherweight contest. After 10 rounds all three judges gave Ford every round and scored it 100-90 for the New Jersey fighter who formerly held the WBA featherweight title which was wrested from him by Nick Ball.

Shakhram Giyasov (17-0, 10 KOs) made good on a promise to his departed daughter by knocking out Argentina’s Franco Ocampo (17-3, 8 KOs) in their welterweight battle.

Giyasov floored Ocampo in the first round with an overhand right but the Argentine fighter was able to recover and fight on for several more rounds.

In the fourth frame, Giyasov launched a lead right to the liver and collapsed Ocampo with the body shot for the count of 10 at 1:57 of the fourth round.

“I had a very hard camp because I lost my daughter,” Giyasov explained. “I promised I would be world champion.”

In his second pro fight Omari Jones (2-0) needed only seconds to disable William Jackson (13-6-2) with a counter right to the body for a knockout win. The former Olympic medalist was looking for rounds but reacted to his opponent’s actions.

“He was a veteran he came out strong,” said Jones who won a bronze medal in the 2024 Paris Olympics. “But I just stayed tight and I looked for the shot and I landed it.”

After a feint, Jackson attacked and was countered by a right to the rib cage and down he went for the count at 1:40 of the first round in the welterweight contest.

Photo credit: Matchroom

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