Inconceivably, the twelfth round saw the deeply religious Holyfield mount a Lazarus-like resurrection. Knocked down by a brutal right, commentator Jim Lamptey claimed it was a “miracle” the champion made it to the end of the session. The eleventh saw Bowe come out stronger, wailing away on the flagging Holyfield. However, the champion had punched himself to a near-standstill in the draining round. After eating several Bowe combinations, Holyfield roared back, showing why he would go down in history as one of boxing’s finest warriors. The tenth stanza, which would win The Ring magazine’s Round Of The Year, saw ‘The Real Deal’ retake territory from ‘Big Daddy’. A savage, evenly-contested war of attrition saw Holyfield outworked and outpunched by his bigger foe. The action on the night did not just live up to this finely-poised match-up, but far surpassed anything spectators were expecting. The champion entered as the betting favourite, but Bowe was as worthy as challengers get. World title challenger Bert Cooper, who himself had just floored Holyfield for the first time in his career, had also been wiped out by Bowe in two rounds. Former heavyweight champions Tony Tubbs and Pinklon Thomas, as well as future belt-holder Bruce Seldon, had fallen. ‘Big Daddy’ had built an unblemished 31-0 record in very good company. The undisputed champion Evander Holyfield was meeting an unbeaten puncher who was widely agreed-upon as the legitimate number one contender. The two great champions shared three fights of furious action, intense fascination and a stray Fan Man.īefore a glove had been laced, the first meeting of these two warriors had all the makings of a classic. With all due respect to the triple-helping of superb violence that Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder have served up over the last few years, Evander Holyfield and Riddick Bowe staged the greatest three-fight series in heavyweight history. On this day in 1992, the greatest heavyweight trilogy of all-time kicked off.
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