Becoming Holyfield

Atlanta, 1978

The kid's name was Stevie Kirwood, and he wasn't bad at all: a quick left hand, light on his feet and a couple of years of ring savvy so that the usual tricks you can play on a rookie wouldn't work.

Try as I might, I couldn't put Stevie down; his reflexes were too good and he was reading me too well. So even though I landed a lot of punches, not many were good solid hits. Stevie would see them coming, and while he couldn't get completely out of the way, he'd duck or twist or sidestep enough to keep himself from getting too hurt.

On the other hand, he was spending nearly all his time protecting himself and hardly laid a glove on me. I was getting a nice workout while racking up points with the judges and could coast to an easy victory, but that's not how I liked to do things. I threw everything I could against Stevie, but he was still standing when the bell signaled the end of the third round, which is as far as amateur fights go. Barely standing, anyway: He was completely exhausted and hardly had the strength to come to the middle of the ri ... read full excerpt from Becoming Holyfield: A Fighter's Journey ebook