On This Date: Riddick Bowe Beats Evander Holyfield, and Round 10 Becomes a Classic (Nov. 13, 1992)
On Nov. 13, 1992, unbeaten Riddick Bowe beat unbeaten Evander Holyfield for the undisputed heavyweight title, and their 10th round became a classic.
On Nov. 13, 1992, 2 unbeaten heavyweights fought for the WBA, WBC, and IBF titles at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas. Riddick Bowe won a unanimous decision over Evander Holyfield and became the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world.
Nobody remembers the scorecards. They remember round 10.
28-0 vs. 31-0
Holyfield came in 28-0 with 22 knockouts. He was 30 years old and held the WBA, WBC, and IBF titles. He’d won them 2 years earlier by knocking out Buster Douglas, the man who had shocked Mike Tyson in Tokyo.
Bowe was 31-0 with 27 knockouts, 25 years old, and a lot bigger: 235 pounds and 6-foot-5, against Holyfield’s 205 pounds. He’d grown up in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn and won a silver medal at the 1988 Olympics. His trainer was Eddie Futch, the same man who stopped the Thrilla in Manila in 1975.
Holyfield was a slight favorite. He was guaranteed $5 million and figured to make 3 times that once the pay-per-view money came in. Bowe was guaranteed $3 million. About 18,000 people packed the arena.
Round 10
Bowe leaned on his size and his jab all night. By CompuBox’s count, he landed 132 jabs to Holyfield’s 63.
Early in the 10th, he hurt Holyfield with uppercuts and combinations. Holyfield was in real trouble, and it looked like the fight was about to end.
Then Holyfield fought back. He traded with a bigger man who was trying to knock him out, and in the last minute he was the one landing, with the crowd on its feet. Bowe still won the round on the numbers, landing 46 punches to Holyfield’s 23.
The Ring magazine named it the Round of the Year for 1992. HBO’s Jim Lampley, who called the fight, has since named it his favorite round. The next morning, the Reno Gazette-Journal called it “one of the greatest rounds in heavyweight history.”
The Knockdown
Holyfield had spent everything he had in round 10. In the 11th, Bowe caught him with a right hand to the side of the head and put him down. Holyfield was up quickly, took an 8-count from referee Joe Cortez, and survived the round and then the 12th.
The judges had it 117-110, 117-110, and 115-112, all for Bowe. By CompuBox’s count, Bowe landed 357 punches to Holyfield’s 242.
Afterward, Holyfield sounded like a man who was done. “I don’t want a rematch,” he said. “I think I’m finished.”
The Ring named it the Fight of the Year.
The Trash Can
Bowe didn’t stay undisputed for long.
The WBC wanted him to defend its belt against Lennox Lewis, the British heavyweight who had beaten Bowe in the 1988 Olympic final. The 2 sides couldn’t agree on how to split the money. On Dec. 14, 1992, at a press conference in London, Bowe dropped the WBC belt into a trash can. The WBC named Lewis its champion that same day.
Bowe and Lewis never fought as pros.
The Trilogy
Holyfield wasn’t finished. On Nov. 6, 1993, outdoors at Caesars Palace, he won the rematch by majority decision.
That’s the fight remembered for the Fan Man, a paraglider named James Miller who flew into the ring ropes in the 7th round and stopped the fight for about 20 minutes.
They fought a 3rd time on Nov. 4, 1995. Holyfield dropped Bowe in the 6th round with a left hook, the first knockdown of Bowe’s pro career. Bowe got up and stopped Holyfield in the 8th. It was the first time Holyfield had been stopped as a pro.
Bowe won the series, 2-1. He retired with a record of 43-1, and his only loss was to Holyfield.
7 Years to the Day
There’s one more Nov. 13 in this story. On Nov. 13, 1999, 7 years to the day after Bowe-Holyfield I, Lennox Lewis beat Holyfield and became the next undisputed heavyweight champion. The man Bowe wouldn’t fight ended up with the whole title, and the last pieces came from the man Bowe beat.
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