Evander Holyfield, a legend of the sport, has become best known for his legendary bouts with Mike Tyson, Lennox Lewis, and Riddick Bowe, but his biggest rival was in fact none of these, but a man who he faced six times as an amatuer.
Evander Holyfield retired with a record of 44-10-2, and was part of some of the biggest fights the sport of boxing has ever seen.
From Holyfield’s infamous fight with Mike Tyson in which his ear was bitten, which was refereed by a boxer, ref, and TV judge, to his controversial draw with Lennox Lewis, Holyfield’s career has been the subject of great fascination.
But if you asked anyone who Holyfield’s biggest rival was they’d probably tell you Mike Tyson, Lennox Lewis, or a host of other names, but one name they very likely wouldn’t say is Rickey Womack.
Evander Holyfield on rival Rickey Womack: “He could just be vicious”
Holyfield and Womack fought six times in their amateur careers, with the latter two fights coming in the Olympic Box-Offs, determining who got a spot on the 1984 Olympic team.
Womack lost both of those fights to Holyfield, as well as two others, but defeated him on two separate occasions.
Holyfield had much to say about Womack in an interview, explaining:
“I fought Ricky Womack six times. Ricky Womack was current amateur heavyweight and light heavyweight champion, and he whooped the Cuban, knocked out the Russian, and he was the one that supposed to make the Olympic team.”
He spoke highly of his nemesis, stating that even though he beat him four out of six times, every instance was razor-close:
“Each and every time you fought him, you can probably take a coin to flip it up and say who won it because that’s how close it would each and every time. It’s not like he stopped me, and not like I stopped him.”
Holyfield commented also on how he won the final fight of their amateur feud:
“In the last fifteen second of the fight he took a breath and I hit him six or seven unanswered punches and I win.”
He went on to have an amazing career, though Holyfield lost his final fight against UFC star Vitor Belfort in 2021. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about Womack’s career.
What happened to Rickey Womack?
Womack finished his boxing career with an amateur record of 23-7 and a professional record of 13-0-1.
His life was a troubled one, and his career was severely affected by his criminal behavior, not unlike Caveman Lee, who committed a bank robbery after losing to Marvin Hagler. After committing an armed robbery, Womack’s career was derailed as he served fifteen years in prison.
He would return to boxing after getting out, and won four fights before hanging up the gloves for good.
On January 2002, tragedy struck when only two months after his final fight, Womack took his own life.
Holyfield remembered Womack and recognized his troubled past, stating: “He was one of them guys that came up in a bad neighborhood, but he could be warm and bright at times, and sometimes he could just be vicious.”