"Well, it is disappointing and that's why there are rules and regulations. Hopefully, when we file a protest, we could get this overturned. That's the only thing that you can ask for when you won the fight hands down. I will make the plea to the WBA that hey, you gotta call it like you see it and I'm going to challenge them to get all of the other officials and tell them to look at this thing. I'm being realistic because it does not take a professional to see that one guy's small and the other is big and it's not like I ran from the guy. I'm the one that made the fight," stated 4-time heavyweight champion and future hall-of-famer Evander Holyfield as he shared his thoughts about his EXTREMELY controversial majority decision loss to Nikolai Valuev this past Saturday. You don't want to miss what he had to say in this exclusive interview!
PC: I have to start by saying you were definitely robbed in that fight against Valuev. How do you feel about your performance and what was the gameplan going in?
EH: I felt good going into the fight. We had a good gameplan and we set to carry it out and we did. It was a little bit easier than I thought it would have been and thank God for that.
PC: You were able to find a home with your right hand and left hook. Was it tough at first to close the distance on such a big man?
EH: No! It's not like it was easy; it was just timing. I was able to get him to think about keeping up with me and that made him spread. I would go to the left and then come back to the right a couple of times and then just be a little bit out of his reach. That way, he had to pick his feet up to hit me, but any time he would pick his feet up, I would see that and I would dart in there and hit him. That's what I was able to do, but I didn't pick up on that until after the fight started. This is the reason why I kept moving back and fourth. He would have to take and move his feet over here and there to try and hit me and that required him to pick his feet up and move towards me, but he had to lead with his head and I knew he was about to try and hit me. That allowed me to slip and get in and throw my punches. Anybody that seen the fight knows when I came in, he wouldn't do nothing but hold. That's pretty much how the fight played out and I'm fortunate enough to have the opportunity in which I call it a victory. I've never fought a guy that tall, that size, with his weight and all of that and I was able to win comfortably.
PC: You are always classy in victory and defeat. I think you fought the perfect gameplan to beat a man that size. It has to be somewhat disappointing for you to lose this fight after doing seemingly everything that you could to become the champion?
EH: Well, it is disappointing and that's why there are rules and regulations. Hopefully, when we file a protest, we could get this overturned. That's the only thing that you can ask for when you won the fight hands down. I will make the plea to the WBA that hey, you gotta call it like you see it and I'm going to challenge them to get all of the other officials and tell them to look at this thing. I'm being realistic because it does not take a professional to see that one guy's small and the other is big and it's not like I ran from the guy. I'm the one that made the fight. When I came in, he was trying to hold me and when I was on the outside, he couldn't catch me with anything so that's how the fight went. I hit him more times than he hit me.
PC: You had him confused in there for sure. When it was coming down to the championship rounds, did you feel like you had the fight in the bag?
EH: Realistically, I know he is the champion so you have to clearly win the fight when you fight the champion. It's not one of them things where you can try to win, shoot, 6 rounds and then try to let him catch up. After I won 6, then it was me trying to win the other 6 because he didn't have an answer. He didn't have a clue. Realistically, my whole thing is to get people that feel the same way I feel to call the WBA and write to them and tell them what you saw. This was not even close. If it was a controversial decision on my part, I could understand, but this was not controversial at all. It's up to them. If you don't believe I was winning, then listen to his corner and what they were telling him, "Knock him out! You gotta knock him out to win this fight!" That's pretty much what it was.
PC: When they started reading off the scores, I had a feeling you were in trouble. Did you sense the same thing?
EH: I'm one of them people that believes to the end (laughing). Even when they called his name and said he won, I felt like this ain't something that got to be protested for me to have a victory. I understand what the Bible says, "No weapon that is formed against you will prosper," but he didn't say it wouldn't be formed against you. He said it won't prosper so with me, I feel like I will get what I'm supposed to get in the end. I'm still looking for that victory. I've already won it, I'm just waiting on them to announce it. I'm just waiting on them to say, "Hey, we rethought it." I want them to put my belt on in front of people. I don't want them to say, "You got it; be quiet!" No, no, no! I want the WBA people themselves to say, "We've changed the outcome. This was a wrong decision and we have to do this publicly." I won it publicly in front of the people and ya'll told me I lost so I want them to retract that.
PC: In other words, you don't want the title mailed to you (laughing)?
EH: Oh, no (laughing)! They're not going to mail nothing to me. I want to have a press conference for Evander Holyfield; they gotta undo what they done on the 20th. They have to do a press conference because that's the only thing that they could do to get the people to come back. I'm not asking for a rematch, I'm asking for this to be overturned! I ain't done nothing wrong to no organization. All I ever did was try to follow the rules and regulations that they've wanted me to do.
PC: A lot of people question your age and why you are still fighting, but you were on them toes like in the Bowe fights last Saturday?
EH: It's funny that you say the same thing that they were saying. They were saying, "He's doing the same thing that he did against Riddick Bowe." In other words, that's because Riddick Bowe had those big, long legs and as long as I could get up on my toes, he couldn't catch up with me. I fought him the first time flat-footed and you see what happened. (Laughing) He tore me up. Once I started moving, he couldn't get me. I realized if I'm fighting somebody with long legs and arm length, then I gotta move to the right and move to the left. I can't just stay right there in front of them. I can't do that because I know what happens when I do that because I done did that before.
PC: We see heavyweights that are in their 20's that come to the ring out of shape and get gassed after 4 or 5 rounds. You come in at 214 pounds ripped up to the max at 46 years of age. What's the secret because I'm 28 and I can't get on your level?
EH: The secret is giving your body time to rebuild. What I'm saying is I don't let myself get out of shape. I realize as a boxer my company is my body. I don't have the same privilege as other people have to go out and just eat, eat and eat because all of a sudden, I'm damaging what I done built up. That's just like wasting money. You think because I make a lot of money, I'm just going to blow my money? I'm going to run out eventually. So it's the same thing with my body. That's the reason why people get upset talking about I'm old. I'm in better shape than some of these young guys body. The young guys can't do the things that I do.
PC: You always come in shape and you always come to fight, that's for sure.
EH: One thing about all of these things that happen, because you know things come up and everybody said they heard the thing about the steroids, I said, "Okay then, have you ever seen somebody on steroids?" I say, "Nowm you can look at a person with a steroid body and then look at my body and can't tell the difference?" I'm 46 years old and you don't see my chest hanging down or see stretch marks where my body has been so big and now I have shrunk a little so my skin jingles. I have never been that way. Germany is known for their great athletes because all of that stuff is started in Germany. They have the best doctors in the world for chemical stuff because that's where it started. I told them, "You can't look at my body at 46 years old and tell that I ain't never had steroids?" You have to understand how a steroid body looks. Those guys look like they have breasts. It's shaped a whole different way. I asked them how many times had they ever seen me overweight. I've never gained 30 or 40 pounds real quick. Look at the people that use steroids and then get off of them. How do they look? You know what they look like? They look like gorillas. Look at a gorilla. They're chests come up and then they're stomach catches up to it. They can check my waist size and check me for stretch marks because ain't nothing overgrown. They talk about how skinny my legs are. They are what they are. I don't sit here and try to do things to make my legs bigger. They are what they are and they can carry me.
PC: A lot of these young fighters feel like they have to go into camp with weight to lose and I don't think you've ever gone in with that mentality.
EH: You're right about that because I remember when I first started off, I was at light heavy. Every time I went into camp, I always had to lose 5 pounds. I walked around at 180 pounds. I had to lose 5 pounds to make 175. I remember a time man where my head hurt so dog gone bad to get down to 175. I couldn't drink water
how many fighters you know that's on a diet where they could only drink water 2 times a day?
PC: Damn!
EH: I was almost about to kill myself (laughing). My last fight at 175 pounds, I was in Norfolk, Virginia and I told my manager, "I can't make the weight." He told them to move the weight up. I couldn't make the weight and my manager told them they have to put me in the next division and that's how I ended up at cruiserweight because man, I got so tired. Man, I ran every day! I had to do something every day. Even on the days I was off I had to do something. If I drank water, I gained weight so it got to the point where I said, "I would rather fight the big guys than to go through all of this." I had to eat. I knew if I didn't move up in weight, that one day I was going to be fat because I knew I was going to get burned out. Who in the world wants to work hard all day and all night? I worked hard all day and all night and was miserable trying to look like something or trying to keep from fighting somebody that you think probably hits harder than you. That's what it was and I realized that and I said, "Shoot, I'm going to go ahead and go on up to cruiserweight." Those guys, you to have to come from 200 and something pounds to make 190 and if they made 190, I'd beat the day lights out of them. Then all of a sudden, when it came down to the heavyweight division, I said, "Okay!" The only reason I moved up to heavyweight is when I seen Mike Tyson laying it on them boys. I said, "Shoot, if he could lay it on them like that, so can I." His arms were shorter than mine and I used to always think, "How in the world this little, bitty man can hang with them guys?" Man, Mike would hit them guys and they were going down and he wasn't but 215 and them guys were 235-240. Mike's really like 5'9". They say he 5'11", but he got wedges on them boots (laughing). Whatever size he was, he was tearing them boys up so I realized if he could do that, I could too because my boxing skills were better than Mike's. Mike had that power with him though. He hit those suckers and they were gone. I realized that I could slip a little bit better than Mike and I can box a little bit better than Mike so I felt like if he could hang with them, I could hang with them. I said to myself (laughing), "If they don't bust him up, I know they can't bust me up."
PC: Tyson used that one punch power and you used that accumulation of punches to deal with them big boys.
EH: Well, yeah! I knew my work was cut out for me and I didn't mind paying whatever the price that was necessary. And that's pretty much how it happened for me.
PC: You made the fight Saturday look easy, but you've had your fair share of wars. Could you give me a short list of your toughest fights?
EH: Ah man, I would say Dwight Muhammad Qawi, that 15-round fight. After that, the fight with Riddick Bowe and then the last fight with Lennox Lewis; that was tough then. After the fight with Lewis, I would have to rank that Michael Dokes fight. I done had
(laughing) I done had some barnburners. That's how those fights used to be to me. If I didn't have a tough fight, I didn't think it was a good fight. (Laughing) They arms were so much longer than mine, I had to stay in their face all of the time.
PC: Well, you definitely made the first fight with Mike Tyson look pretty easy Pop?
EH: You know what? It wasn't easy, but I was more prepared for that fight than any fight that I've ever fought. I ain't never studied a guy as hard as I studied Mike Tyson. Even when he first started fighting
every time that he fought, everyone knew I had to be watching that fight. I was a cruiserweight, but I would watch him because I knew that the best had to fight the best eventually. When I was a light heavyweight, my goal was to be the heavyweight champion of the world. By them having the cruiserweight division, that gave me the opportunity to develop slowly. I didn't have to just jump right in there. It was a smart way of doing it and I'm thankful I had the right people in my corner that allowed me to do it the proper way moreso than to do it fast just to say you got there and then get tore up.
PC: You definitely deserved better Saturday night. As always, it was a pleasure and honor speaking with you. Is there anything you would like to say to your fans in closing because you're getting a lot of support on the boards?
EH: I just want them to write to the WBA and tell them how you saw it. Explain to them and let them know what their credentials are. Let them know how you came up with your scores and tell them, "I know good and well that man won 10 of them 12 rounds."
[EDITOR'S NOTE: If you want to do your part, send an email to WBA Executive Vice President Gilberto Mendoza Jr. at gjmendoza@wbaonline.com and voice your opinion to have the decision overturned.]
[ Follow Percy Crawford on Twitter @MrLouis1ana ]