Holyfield moved to the cruiserweight division in 1985 and won his first title the following year, when he defeated Dwight Muhammad Qawi for the WBA Cruiserweight belt.

Holyfield moved up to heavyweight in 1988, winning his first six fights, all by stoppage.

The youngest of nine children, Holyfield and his family moved to Atlanta in the summer of 1964, at the age of two.

Only one betting parlor in Las Vegas would hold odds for the bout, and many thought it was just an easy tune-up for Tyson before a future mega-fight with undefeated Evander Holyfield, who had recently moved up to heavyweight from cruiserweight where he became the first boxer to be the undisputed champion of the weight class.

* May 17-Carlos De León becomes the first boxer to win the world Cruiserweight title four times ( and also joins a handful of champions who have won world titles in one division that many times ) when he knocks out Sammy Reeson in nine rounds in London, picking up the WBC belt that had been vacated by his former conqueror, Evander Holyfield, when Holyfield moved to the Heavyweight division.

In 1972, Holyfield left Arkansas and moved to Nashville, Tennessee to pursue a songwriting career and his first song was recorded in 1973.

Evander Holyfield successfully moved up from the light-heavyweight division to both the cruiser and eventually heavyweight divisions and became undisputed champion of both.

Evander Holyfield unified the WBA, WBC, and IBF titles to become undisputed champion, the first to do so, and then moved up to the heavyweight division in 1988.

In 1996, he stepped up to the heavyweight division, but lost by knockout in five rounds to Evander Holyfield and quickly retired.

** Boxer Riddick Bowe defeats Evander Holyfield to become undisputed heavyweight champion.

After Lennox Lewis defeated Evander Holyfield for the Undisputed ( i. e., WBC + IBF + WBA ) World heavyweight championship in late 1999, the WBA mysteriously ordered Lewis to defend the title against obscure Don King fighter Ruiz, their # 1-ranked contender, but Lewis refused.

Ruiz fought former champion Holyfield to fill the vacancy on August 12, 2000, losing by unanimous decision ( this result made Holyfield the first to win a world heavyweight title on four separate occasions ).

Lane became a household name in the United States the night he refereed " The Bite Fight " rematch between world heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield and challenger Mike Tyson on June 28, 1997.

* November 13 – Riddick Bowe won a 12 round decision over Evander Holyfield to win the undisputed heavyweight championship.

In December 1988 he returned from a 19 month layoff to fight # 1 heavyweight contender Evander Holyfield.

Bowe would go on to defeat Holyfield and become undisputed world heavyweight champion.

Having failed to secure a rematch with Tyson in 1988, this time for the undisputed heavyweight championship, he made one last attempt at the big time, brought in to fight reigning cruiserweight world champion Evander Holyfield, who was making a high-profile move into the heavyweight ranks.

He won two more fights, including a victory over former world heavyweight titlist Leon Spinks, before accepting a challenge from Olympian Evander Holyfield on July 12, 1986.

The light heavyweight class has produced some of boxing's greatest champions: Bernard Hopkins, Evander Holyfield, Tommy Loughran, Billy Conn, Joey Maxim, Archie Moore, Jonathan Oakey, Bob Foster, Michael Spinks, Dariusz Michalczewski and Roy Jones Jr. to name a few.

At one point during this time, he was rumored to be a possible opponent for famous heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield, but this fight never materialized.

The network was started by attorney Willie E. Gary, baseball legend Cecil Fielder, four-time heavyweight boxing champ Evander Holyfield, Marlon Jackson of The Jackson 5, and broadcast television veteran Alvin James.

However Cooper bounced back in 1991, stopping Joe Hipp in 5 rounds then being matched on short notice with Evander Holyfield for the undisputed heavyweight championship after two opponents dropped out.

For a two-year period in the early 1990s served as chief sparring partner for then world heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield.

He made a couple of defenses in Italy and then in 1988, lost his titles in a unification bout with WBA world champion Evander Holyfield, by TKO in the eighth round, also in Las Vegas.

On October 25, 1990, Holyfield knocked out Heavyweight Champion James " Buster " Douglas to claim the WBC, WBA, IBF & The Ring Heavyweight titles.

Holyfield gave Main Events another championship, when he knocked out Buster Douglas in three rounds to win the world Heavyweight title with Duva as his co trainer along with George Benton.

Douglas vs Holyfield was a reported $ 24. 6 million payday for Buster, though years later he said on the Howard Stern show he walked away with $ 1. 5 million after taxes, managers, trainers, etc.

* October 25, 1990-Evander Holyfield vs. Buster Douglas

Douglas held the title for eight months and two weeks, losing on October 25, 1990, to 28-year-old, 6-foot-2-inch, 208-pound Evander Holyfield, via third-round KO, in his only title defense.

Not wanting to deal with Tyson's camp or his promoter Don King, Douglas decided to make his first defense against # 1 contender Evander Holyfield, who had watched the new champion dethrone Tyson from ringside in Tokyo.

In the third round of the fight, Douglas attempted to hit Holyfield with a hard uppercut that he telegraphed.

Holyfield avoided the uppercut and hit an off-balance Douglas with a straight right to the chin to knock him down.

Due to this controversial decision, the WBA ordered an immediate rematch in early 2001, and Ruiz won the WBA title in a slightly less-close unanimous decision-controversial as Ruiz had been decked by a Holyfield body shot and rolled around on the floor holding his groin for over a minute.

The replay shows that the blow was a legal bodyshot, not remotely near Ruiz's crotch, and should have been scored a KO10 victory for Holyfield.

Ruiz defended the title twice: a controversial draw in a third match against Holyfield where the press believed Holyfield to have won, and a disqualification victory against Kirk Johnson where the Canadian contender was disqualified for repeated low blows in the tenth round.

The win got Holmes a shot at Evander Holyfield for the Undisputed World Heavyweight Championship.

But Holyfield soon left the division to pursue the world Heavyweight championship, and De León was left with an open door to break his own record and win the title for a record fourth time.

Holyfield regained the title in a rematch one year later, beating Bowe by majority decision for the WBA and IBF titles.

Seven months later, Holyfield won the 1997 rematch against Tyson, when the latter was disqualified in round three for biting off part of Holyfield's ear.

Holyfield would lose a rematch with Ruiz seven months later and would face him for the third time in a draw.

On April 22, 1994, Moorer challenged Evander Holyfield for the Lineal, IBF, and WBA title belts.

In his home state of Arkansas, Holyfield is most famous for his song Arkansas, You Run Deep In Me which was written for the 1986 Arkansas Sesquicentennial celebration.

Holyfield received a Grammy Award nomination in 1972 for Could I Have this Dance and in 1979, he received the NSAI Presidential Award.

After the loss to Holyfield, Qawi fought off and on for the next 12 years, but never regained a world title.

He rematched with Holyfield in 1987 for the WBA and IBF cruiserweight titles, but was stopped in the fourth round.

He drew criticism for what some considered to be overly dramatic speeches in the ring corner, particularly during Moorer's Heavyweight title fight with Evander Holyfield, and some felt he did these antics to draw attention to himself rather than help his fighter, during one such speech Atlas blocked Moorer from sitting on his stool and asked " Do you want me to take over?

As part of the undercard of the rematch between Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson (" The Bite Fight "), which also featured former world champions Julio César Chávez and Miguel Ángel González, she and Martin met for a third time.