Champs Page #3

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nose, busted lips.

The most interesting thing about

it is that they were happy.

When they would come

back, they're all beat up,

but they're happy.

And I would say, what's

going on over there.

And they said, Mr. Stewart

is boxing with the inmates.

Mr. Stewart is probably 160

pounds, white Irish guy.

I never fought before

with gloves on,

but I just knew I could beat

Mr. Stewart's white ass.

I just knew I could beat him.

I'm just flaring away, and

he had hit me in my stomach,

and I had went

down, and I started

throwing up everything

I ate for two days.

Just blech.

So I asked him to

start teaching me.

He wouldn't teach

me unless I started

behaving around the facilities.

And once I made my honor

rolls and started doing well

in school, he started

teaching me how to box.

Bobby Stewart immediately

saw the potential in Mike,

and Bobby said, if you're

serious about this,

I'll take you to see

this old guy in Catskill.

Soon as Cus D'Amato saw me spar,

he was planning my

life out for me.

First day he met me.

Cus was a kind of gruff guy.

He didn't display any emotion.

At the end of this session,

Cus turned to Bobby and said,

this guy's going to be the

future heavyweight champion

of the world.

At that time, I was

about to be paroled back to New

York, and he didn't want me

to go back because he believed

I would get in trouble,

I'd get killed.

He asked me would I be

interested in staying with him.

And I said, why, sure.

I didn't want to go back to the

disgusting, wretched tenements

that we lived in.

This guy had a wonderful

like 14 room mansion.

Roses and stuff.

I never saw that stuff.

For the

beginning of that period,

Mike was still

living in two worlds.

While he was in

Brownsville, he'd

fall in with his old

friends and they'd

go out and start jostling.

Mike's first street

mentor, this guy

Barqueem, I think they

saw some pictures of Mike

with Cus and with Camille, and

they looked, and he said, man.

Mike, these white people.

It looks like they love you.

And Mike said, yeah, yeah.

They love me.

And he goes... Barqueem says,

what are you doing here, man.

If I had white

people that loved me,

I wouldn't stick around here.

And everybody in

the neighborhood

is telling Mike, go.

Get out of here.

At least 30% of all the families

in Brownsville at that time

had no father figures.

I think when we look at boxing,

we see a number

of men who grew up

without a father in the home.

But what's key is, they

grew up in circumstances

where the family was redefined.

The trainers became part of

this larger extended family.

Cus would tell

Mike that he was a colossus.

He was a titan.

And he's telling him this

and building up his ego

to a person who has

absolutely no self esteem.

So it's a very tricky situation.

I heard about this heavy weight

that they were saying,

this guy is dangerous.

He's from Cus D'Amato's camp and

he was trained by Kevin Rooney.

When I finally seen

him, I was like, man.

He was like... He was

going through fighters

like a hot knife on butter.

From that moment on,

we knew he was special.

North Philly

was known for a lot of fighters

back in the '60s,

'70s, and in the '80s.

I got introduced to the

amateurs, and I had the talent,

I had the skills.

But then as time

went on, eventually I

started getting respect

as a street fighter

and I shot away from boxing.

Every time I got stabbed,

which was more than once, crazy

as it might seem, it gave

more stock to who you are.

In 1984, I was put in

jail for taking money.

At that time, I

blamed the system

for everything, even

for my ignorance.

That same year, my brother

got in a fight and the guy

pulled a gun out.

He tried to run.

He got shot.

They couldn't find him because

he ran down the street,

and when they found him, he

was laying across the grass.

So can you imagine my mom?

It had to be hard on

her to bury one son

and then get to see me being

escorted by the sheriff's

department from prison

to view the body

and then go back to prison.

So basically, she lost two sons.

So 1984 was a really

challenging year.

1984, Mike and myself,

we were both trying to

make the Olympic team.

There was a big emphasis

placed back then,

especially on the idea of

your amateur experience

and this Olympic experience.

It was very much a

place where your worth

was going to be determined.

Holyfield and Tyson

got an early taste

of what the other was

about at the Olympics.

That's when I got a

chance to see him train.

I'm one of the guys who kind of

prides myself on working hard.

And when I worked

in the gym with him

and I'd seen all the things that

he would do, I was just amazed.

I was like, god, you know?

Shoot.

17 years old.

He's just a kid, man.

He's the only person

in a gym that I

can admit that I worked with.

I didn't think nobody

was gonna beat him.

Mike unfortunately lost to

a guy named Henry Tillman.

Didn't make the Olympic team.

He was voted as an alternate.

I went to the Olympic trials.

I didn't make the Olympics,

but the experience

in going to the Olympics

was just incredible.

Evander Holyfield, he was

just very competitive,

because he was just very hungry.

Very hungry fighter.

And he fought.

It reminded me of me.

He was gonna win the

most outstanding fight,

I thought, because he was

knocking out everybody.

He was beating everybody easily.

Evander Holyfield,

United States of America.

Kevin Barry, New Zealand.

Holyfield came into

the competition

the unknown American,

but he's known now,

and he's only 21 years old.

Look at Holyfield.

He's ready.

He's got the

opponent hurt again.

He's ready to put him away.

Even though there's

no blood there.

Oh, there it goes.

You saw that.

It was inevitable.

Now wait a minute.

Evander launches

a lethal hook that drops Barry,

and everybody thinks, OK.

Fight's over.

Move on.

All of a sudden, the referee

starts motioning to the judges.

He starts motioning

to Evander, and nobody

knows exactly what's going on.

He is going to

disqualify Evander Holyfield.

He makes the announcement

that Evander is disqualified for

hitting after he called stop.

Nobody really heard

the referee say stop.

All they saw was

Evander drop the guy.

Holyfield got screwed royally.

He shouldn't have been

disqualified against Barry.

It was a joke.

Holyfield in

total command of the fight.

And I just don't

understand this ruling.

Look at Holyfield's face.

What an untoward development.

Very conscious.

Controlling.

Controlling the anger.

Controlling the tongue.

I sit there and took it.

Howard Cosell made

me bigger than life.

This is unbelievable.

Holyfield holding

himself together.

A raging controversy

had reared its ugly head.

Bill Simon, the president of the

Los Angeles Olympic Committee

has gotten involved.

It really is a full

blown controversy.

He wanted that gold medal,

but by responding to it the

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