As fight fans know, Evander Holyfield, at age 58 (59 next month) will return to the ring this Saturday night, against MMA legend Vitor Belfort. But the man Holyfield really wants to fight, again, in what would be a third fight, is Mike Tyson. But Ryan Kavanaugh of Triller has told Sky Sports that Tyson is “too scared” to fight Holyfield again; and that Tyson has turned down a “massive payday” because he “thinks Evander would knock him out.”
Tyson came back to box Roy Jones (the event doing very well on pay-per-view) and now, according to Kavanaugh, Tyson is trying to make a fight with Lennox Lewis. But Tyson wants no part of Holyfield, the Triller exec says.
“We know Tyson is trying to stage a fight with Lennox Lewis,” Kavanaugh said. “We have been told that he is too scared to fight Evander. There has been back and forth hoopla, there is a massive payday ready for Mike to fight on Thanksgiving. A massive payday, one of his biggest! But we can’t seem to push it along. Now I have heard, from a number of reliable sources, that Mike is too scared. He thinks Evander would knock him out.”
While it might seem odd that Tyson is “scared” of Holyfield yet is supposedly willing to get back in the ring with Lewis, who scored a brutal KO over Tyson back in 2002, it is true that Holyfield always was the one fighter Tyson could never get the better of – either physically or psychologically. Holyfield was never scared of Tyson, he always believed he would beat him; even since the amateurs. And Holyfield, basically a born fighter, one who cannot ‘turn it off,’ could not be relied upon to just move around and have fun in any bout, even an exhibition.
So in a way, it’s quite easy to believe how Tyson, at this stage of his life, wants nothing to do with the man who twice defeated him back in the 1990s. But as for Saturday’s bout between Holyfield and Belfort, well, how on earth do you see that one going? It really is crazy how Holyfield is fighting again (and is being allowed to fight again) when almost 60 years of age.
For a number of reasons, for good and for bad, Evander Holyfield really is a unique fighting man.
