{"id":704263,"date":"2026-07-22T00:03:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T00:03:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/704263\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T00:03:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T00:03:12","slug":"evander-holyfield-says-one-victory-will-always-rank-above-mike-tyson-and-riddick-bowe-triumphs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/704263\/","title":{"rendered":"Evander Holyfield says one victory will always rank above Mike Tyson and Riddick Bowe triumphs"},"content":{"rendered":"

While many believe his signature wins came against Mike Tyson<\/a> and Riddick Bowe, Evander Holyfield<\/a> believes his \u201cgreatest night\u201d arrived against a different opponent.<\/p>\n

\u2018The Real Deal\u2019 became a two-division world champion in 1990, dethroning James \u2018Buster\u2019 Douglas with a third-round finish to claim the WBC, IBF and WBA heavyweight titles.<\/p>\n

He then made three successful defences before losing to \u2018Big Daddy\u2019 Bowe<\/a>, who won their first encounter by unanimous decision in 1992.<\/p>\n

The following year, Holyfield exacted his revenge by majority decision<\/a> but would suffer an eighth-round stoppage defeat in their trilogy showdown two years later.<\/p>\n

As for his two clashes with Tyson, Holyfield proved the more measured fighter on both occasions and won by 11th-round stoppage and a third-round disqualification in 1996 and 1997, respectively.<\/p>\n

But while these victories over Bowe and \u2018Iron\u2019 Mike were defining moments of his career, the American has suggested that he was at his very best against Dwight Muhammad Qawi.<\/p>\n

The pair collided for Qawi\u2019s WBA world cruiserweight title in 1986, with Holyfield winning by split decision in a closely-contested 15-round battle.<\/p>\n

Speaking with Boxing News<\/a>, Holyfield placed this particular win ahead of those against Bowe and Tyson.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel my greatest night in the ring was my fight against Dwight Muhammad Qawi. That was 15 rounds and, at the time, I had not gone past eight-rounds. And geez, that fight was like a marathon.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be tired in the fourth round, when there were still 11 rounds to go [laughs], it was a stressful time. And that guy [Qawi] was so cagey. He had a great defence and he threw lots of punches as well. That made it a really difficult fight.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two cruiserweights locked horns again in 1987, with Holyfield scoring a fourth-round finish to retain his WBA and IBF titles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While many believe his signature wins came against Mike Tyson and Riddick Bowe, Evander Holyfield believes his \u201cgreatest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":704264,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-704263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=704263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/704264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=704263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=704263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=704263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}