After his win over Mike Tyson in June of 1997, Evander signed to fight a rematch with Michael Moorer on November 8, 1997 at the Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas. The match would unify two of the championship belts, with Evander holding the WBA title and Moorer the IBF. This match would bring boxing closer to having one heavyweight champion again.
I ordered the pay-per-view card that Saturday night, and my brother came over to watch it on my big screen tv. Evander weighed in at a spectacular 214 lbs., while Moorer looked a bit fleshy at 223 lbs. As the opening bell ran, I was expecting fireworks from Holyfield, to show their first fight wasn’t him at his best.
The fight itself was pretty evenly fought through the first four rounds, before Evander dropped Moorer with a sizzling combination late in the fifth round. After Michael came back with a pretty good sixth round, Evander dropped him twice in the seventh. The ‘Real Deal’ put Moorer on the canvas twice more in the eighth, with the final knockdown coming just as the round closed. The ring doctor rightly stopped the contest between rounds, and Evander was now both the WBA, and IBF champion of the world.
Holyfield never looked better than he did that night, and at age 35, it incredibly seemed like he was getting better with age. Michael had certainly not embarrassed himself, but he would never hold a championship title again.
The WBC champion Lennox Lewis, lurked in the background, and the fight everyone now wanted was a match between him and Evander. Neither man backed down from anyone, and I knew it would just be a matter of time before that bout took place.
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