Evander Holyfield, Mike Tyson and the Bite Fight get the 30 For 30 treatment
Now that Mike Tyson is a movie star, cartoon character and face-tattoo pioneer, some might forget the more intimate details of what his life was like as a real prize fighter. His legitimately awesome career as a heavyweight boxer was derailed by his own bad choices, including domestic abuse and sexual assault. But most famous on his list of poor decisions was when he bit the ear of Evander Holyfield in an incident more commonly known as the “Bite Fight.”
The story leading up to that night in Las Vegas, though, is more than one of a man who went rogue in so many ways in life and tried to cheat to beat an opponent. There’s the other man in the ring: Evander Holyfield. It’s his story that’s documented in ESPN’s “Chasing Tyson,” the latest in the “30 For 30” series, which premieres Tuesday at 8 p.m.
Directed by Oscar-and-Emmy-nominated Steven Cantor, the film takes you back to the beginning of Holyfield’s career, in which he won an Olympic bronze medal after a dicey disqualification call. It’s there that you remember the stoic, but unmoved face of the man who’d eventually come to be called “The Real Deal.”
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For 1990s fashion enthusiasts, there are great moments to be seen. Holyfield doing the running man dance in a Falcons hat, or jumping rope with an MC Hammer T-shirt come to mind. As an Atlanta native, he might have been in Tyson’s shadow nationally, but was a star in his home town, which at the time was coming to prominence as the new Motown.
“I’m chasing titles, I wasn’t chasing Tyson,” Holyfield says at one point, describing his climb from cruiser weight to heavyweight to get Iron Mike in the ring. Of course, a long portion of the film is spent on the inside scuttlebutt that prevented the two from fighting each other for so long. It’s interesting enough, even for non-boxing fans, because both Holyfield and Tyson are such an endearing characters. The archival footage of Evander’s respect and praise for Tyson are extremely telling, almost to the point of sadness. Holyfield was not a trash-talker then, but now, Tyson holds the utmost respect for his toughest opponent.
When a misdiagnosed heart condition nearly ended his career, Tyson didn’t believe it, because he knew better from Holyfield.”For some reason I didn’t think it was that serious. He just didn’t look like a guy that had a bad heart. You know, it may have been bad, but his spirit wasn’t bad. and it wasn’t going to let that interfere,” Tyson says in the movie. “He’s just not the kind of guy to go, oh God, my heart got a bruise on it so I got to stop. He’s just not that guy.”
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Most of the story’s buildup leads to their initial bout in 1996. Reporter Jim Gray provided the context of just how important that fight was to the boxing world overall, never mind the two men in the ring.
“For Holyfield it was a chance to get after somebody who had garnered the entire spotlight, who had taken away any accomplishment he had achieved, because no matter what Tyson did, it was going to get covered. No matter what Holyfield did, it was never going to be as big as Tyson,” Gray said. “So, now was a chance to be on the same stage and a chance to show everybody that he was worthy of being there. And not only worthy of being there, but that he could beat him. And for Tyson, it was a chance for legitimacy again. It was a chance to beat a good guy, who the public liked, and re-establish Tyson as being one of boxing’s greats, again.”
By the time their second fight occurred, Holyfield had basically vindicated his whole career — but there were still detractors. “When I beat Tyson, it was almost like: ‘Okay, I can leave now.’ I did what they thought was impossible,” he says in the film.
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As for the bite itself, where the movie excels is in the raw footage from inside the ring. As the fight unfolds, you can hear what referee Mills Lane is saying to each corner. The scene and resulting chaos play out uninterrupted, allowing you to see just how hectic it was. Tyson was disqualified. In the end, Mike’s words about Holyfield are the most revealing.
“It doesn’t make no excuse for what happened, but I was just enraged, I was just [ticked] off that he was such a great fighter,” Tyson says. “Even though people didn’t give him the credit for it, deep down in my heart, being his peer, I knew, by beating him I really would have conquered the giant. I just wanted to beat him so bad.”
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