Evander Holyfield has opened up on his state of mind when Mike Tyson infamously bit him during their heavyweight showdown in 1997, revealing a higher spirit urged him not to retaliate.
Holyfield and Tyson met in a highly-anticipated heavyweight championship rematch at the MGM Grand, one year after Holyfield had defeated Iron Mike with an 11th round stoppage at the same venue.
“The Real Deal” would emerge victorious for a second time but for all the wrong reasons, with the fight going down in history as one of the most controversial endings to a contest with Tyson biting part of Holyfield’s ear off.
And Holyfield has revealed that he was prepared for Tyson to fight dirty, although he had not expected the fight to unfold as it had done.
“You know, the thing is this prophet told me [before the fight] ‘Mike is going to do something bad to you in this fight,’” Holyfield told BBC Radio 5 Live. “He said ‘he going to do it, but you got to keep your mind on the Lord, that’s the only way he can get you, if he gets you distracted.’
“Mike threw elbows, he hit you with his shoulders, he did a lot of this sneaky stuff. But you know, I just thought that was a part of boxing.
“But when he bit me on the ear, I knew that wasn’t [part of boxing], and I was really, really upset. He almost got me because I was going to bite him back right in the face.”
However, Holyfield says that a reminder of the message he received before the fight put him on the right path to overcome the adversity and not retaliate to the highly controversial antics of Tyson.
“Since the prophet told me these things were going to happen, I told my corner guy [before the fight] that ‘if he does this stuff, remind me of what the prophet told me’.
“And so all I was thinking about was I was going to bite him back, but my corner guy kept saying ‘keep your mind on the lord! Remember what he said!’
“I didn’t want to remember, because I wanted to bite him back and let him know that I was mad too and all of a sudden it came to my mind what my Grandma said ‘you know revenge is the lord’.
“I thought about it, and I told myself not to bite him. And I told Mike, one day we were at an interview together, ‘you know what I been ready to do bite you right there on your fat cheek’.
“He said ‘you were gonna do that?’ and I said ‘yeah, but it came to my mind what my Grandma always told me’ and it changed my whole life, because the bout could have been over, the two best boxers biting each other!”
Tyson was disqualified from the contest and fined £2.4 million for his actions in the fight.