LITMIR.BIZ

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eyes fixed resolutely on the middle distance.

      Holyfield entered - with considerably more ease - to a warm gospel song that was probably about how incredibly big his heart was, but I couldn’t tell, there was so much cheering. And then, with just enough time for me to get used to the almighty size of the shorts they were both wearing (‘What enormous shorts!’), there was the announcement of the two men, the belts they already held, the three ringside judges (one from South Africa, one from Atlantic City, and one from London), mention of the referee being the son of another referee, twelve rounds of three minutes, and ding-ding, blimey, before I could worry too much about how many synonyms for ‘horrified’ I was going to require before the night was out, it had started, amid roars from the crowd, and thousands of cameras flashing at once. Lewis came out very positively, left arm horizontal, left fist level with Holyfield’s face, delivering smart, straight-arm jabs every few seconds, with Holyfield largely back-pedalling and evidently trying to figure out some way of getting to the ‘inside’. Lewis was clearly in control, as Rob and I sagely agreed. We had decided to keep personal point scores according to the proper system - i.e., 10 points to the winner of a round and nine to the loser, unless there’s a knock-down (then it’s 10-8), or a draw (10-10). In the event of a knockout, it’s still technically a win on points, apparently, but I never quite mastered the maths of that. I merely knew, as everyone does, that a knockout means it’s all over. Meanwhile marks out of six for artistic interpretation and technical merit don’t come into it at all, which was a shame because, by my calculations, Lennox was doing quite well on those counts as well.

      At the end of round one, I felt pretty good. True, I needed a spongeful of water on the back of my neck, and a respite from the gum-shield, but I wasn’t out for the count. Lennox also looked as if he felt ok. Holyfield was mainly looking a bit thoughtful, like someone who’s been punched in the face non-stop for three minutes while concentrating on walking backwards. At the end of the round he had suddenly lowered his head between Lewis’s legs and, bizarrely, lifted him off his feet rather in the manner of a trainee fireman - an unconventional, not to say desperate-looking and ungainly move that had earned them both a reminder from the ref about keeping it clean. In the second round, Lewis again efficiently kept Holyfield at arm’s length, but also landed a couple of classy blows with his right. But Holyfield’s prediction that he would knock out Lewis in the third was probably uppermost in both their minds during those first two rounds; it was certainly uppermost in mine. The fight would be won or lost, surely, in that third round - and if the drama were to be cranked up a bit now, to be frank, most people wouldn’t complain.

      Although I felt guilty about it, I had begun to see what people moaned about in Lewis’s fighting style, and why his trainer got so short-tempered with that travelling chess set of his. Even when in control, you see, Lewis had the air of someone manifestly thinking, pondering his options, eyes narrowed, as if deliberating whether the Budapest Gambit would leave him too exposed, eight moves down the line, to the classic Schleswig-Holstein Defence. Holyfield, by contrast, with his head forward and sweat pouring off him, seemed to be simply more engaged in a bout of fisticuffs (as seemed fitting in the circumstances). Finding himself on the back foot in the more explosive third round, Lewis did stop calculating for a little while - Holyfield had charged out of his corner at the bell and started throwing serious blows, including two solid rights to the side of Lewis’s head. But a temporary shifting of Lewis’s rock-like centre of gravity was all that Holyfield had achieved by the end of a heroic and exhausting three minutes, and Holyfield walked back to his corner with his shoulders down, and his head down, too - or, at least, his head bent forward as far as it would go, given how firmly his prodigious neck muscles are attached like splints to the back of it. Was it all over for Holyfield? Lewis seemed to have been shaken, though, because the fourth was quite even. Only in the fifth did Lewis look back in control again.

      Obviously, I’ve watched this fight again recently. By an absolute fluke, while I was researching and making notes for this book, I ransacked the house for my video of Raging Bull, and found at the back of a drawer a forgotten tape with ‘Lewis fight’ written on it in small letters. I couldn’t believe my luck. It was in among my Jeff Bridges collection, behind such unforgettable classics as Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988) and Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974). I turned it over in my hands, wiped off a layer of dust, and thought, this is exactly the sort of invaluable resource that usually turns up just after you’ve finished your book, or just after it’s gone to press. So what a miracle. The week after my return from New York, it turns out, Sky Sports had re-shown the fight, in full, with in-studio analysis, and I’d recorded it (and then, for whatever reason, hidden it to be found after my death by the house-clearers). If I had found this tape at any other moment in the intervening eight years, by the way, I would undoubtedly have recorded University Challenge, Pet Rescue or an even lesser-known Jeff Bridges film on top of it. I still can’t get over this domestic miracle, as you can tell.

      What I had remembered from the fateful night was that Lewis had a good fifth round and that thereafter he seemed to be coasting, confident of winning on points. What the tape showed was that the first half of the fifth round had some terrific boxing from Lewis, but that old fight hands (including Lewis’s animated trainer) were in despair that he didn’t finish off Holyfield there and then. Later, Don King would say, ‘When you have a man on the ropes, you’re supposed to finish him, not play chess with him.’ Lewis would reply, as always, that there was no sense in exposing himself unnecessarily to counter-attack, which is a perfectly defensible point of view. As far as Lewis was concerned, he was winning this fight and doing it his own way, by anticipating and frustrating Holyfield’s moves, while landing a huge number of blows. Holyfield was bruised, puffy and in manifest need of a long lie-down (with his trousers on). My own impression at the time was that, ‘While working Holyfield relentlessly with the famous left jab and openly dominating him, Lewis was like an angler teasing a fish on his line. Just because he didn’t bang the fish on the head with a mallet doesn’t mean he didn’t catch him.’

      But now I don’t know. The rest of the fight was, in reality, not so one-sided as it seemed on the night. Lewis landed vastly more punches than Holyfield, but he didn’t have a clearly brilliant winning round again until the last, while Holyfield rallied in the tenth. At the arena, however, we had stopped scoring quite a long time ago, and were convinced Lewis had won it comfortably, and won it in style. When the final bell sounded, Lewis raised his arms in triumph, and Holyfield just breathed heavily. It had been a thrilling fight, and the great thing for me was that there had been no excessive violence to be sickened by. The sense of relief was fabulous. The jellies were largely safe in their biscuit tins, after all - and at no point had I jumped up and screamed, ‘Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!’ (which was what I had secretly feared). Everyone in the ring congratulated Lewis on his brilliant fight. Rob and I congratulated each other on our outstanding professionalism in the face of this historic triumph. Because it was historic, by the way: not only because it temporarily united the titles, but because no British man had held the undisputed heavyweight championship of the world in the whole of the 20th century until this moment, in 1999, in the very last tickings of the millennium. From Lewis’s point of view, his wait was over, he had silenced his critics, and his question mark could be changed forthwith to an exclamation point. A transparently legitimate fight had been transparently won. Lastly, those world-weary boxing commentators could at last start reaching for synonyms for ‘hallelujah’ and ‘coming up smelling of roses’.

      But then the scores of the judges were announced, so we all listened carefully - with smiles turning quizzical, and eyes narrowing, and heads shaking, and (finally) hackles rising. Because this is the part of the proceedings that the night is actually famous for. The American judge (a woman called Eugenia Williams) had scored it 115 points to 113, apparently, which seemed a bit close, but never mind. Except, hang on, she had scored 115-113 in favour of Holyfield! Good heavens. Only in America, right? But she was only one judge, after all. The second judge, the South African (Stanley Christodoulou) had scored it 116-113 to Lewis, which was a bit more like it, although still surprisingly close. And finally, the British judge (Larry O’Connell) had scored it 115-115, a draw. Both fighters therefore retained their belts and the contest was announced to have no winner, thank you and good night, drive home safe everybody, see you next time, just be careful on the stairs.

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