Evander Holyfield is undeniably one of the greatest heavyweights of recent times, but he has been accused of fighting dirty on more than one occasion.
Evander Holyfield was accused of cheating in 1996. Bobby Czyz scolded Holyfield for putting a foreign substance on his gloves and rubbing it in his eyes.
Holyfield was found innocent of this by the referee, but has also been accused of headbutting, with Mike Tyson’s bite, which Teddy Atlas predicted, coming after Tyson said Holyfield’s headbutts were frustrating him.
In one fight, Holyfield’s opponent really had something to complain about.
Hasim Rahman suffered a hematoma after a clash of heads with Evander Holyfield
On this day, 23 years ago in 2002, Holyfield faced 35-3 Hasim Rahman. Rahman was coming off a loss to Lennox Lewis after beating him in their first encounter.
Holyfield was winning the fight and outboxing Rahman, but still head-butted him in the seventh round, causing a huge bruise and severe swelling above Rahman’s eye.
According to BoxRec: ‘Medical officials said Rahman sustained a hematoma, a tumor-like collection of blood outside the blood vessel.’
The fight was forced to halt and went to a technical decision, with Holyfield, who lost to Nikolai Valuev, winning on two scorecards.
Rahman said after the fight: “He was head-butting me,” Rahman said. “I pointed that out to the referee. I felt every time I threw a right, he would drop his head and head-butt me. I don’t think Evander beat me.”
Evander Holyfield’s penultimate fight ended in a no-contest
Before sailing off into the sunset after a TKO win over Brian Nielsen, Holyfield, who looked awful against Larry Donald, faced 34-11 Sherman Williams.
The fight was a terrible one, with Dan Rafael of ESPN writing: “In the main event of an excruciatingly bad pay-per-view — perhaps the worst ever (for real) — the 48-year-old Holyfield looked every bit his age.”
The fight, thankfully for Rafael, only went three rounds before a cut sustained by Holyfield forced a premature end, resulting in a no-contest.