Book Review Becoming Holyfield- Evander Holyfield

What with the announcement that his retirement is hopefully upon us,here's a heads up for his little known autobiography.Well, it's more of a biography, as it's clearly written in someone else's voice.My guess would be that Holyfield gave a few interviews and they were fleshed out into a more coherent prose than he could manage.
That's not to say there's not good stuff here.He was brought up in extreme poverty and without a Father,leaning heavily on his Southern Baptist mother's beliefs.He always sounds a sweet natured guy, become the ideal son in his God-fearing ways. I actually enjoyed the accounts of his teenage years more than his big fight accounts. The reason being that you do actually get an idea how he, indeed, became the great fighter he was, despite being very very slightly built and wary of hurting others.It's hard to imagine this guy taking steroids-as he denies vehemently in this book.
Strangkey, he hops around chronologically, the only reason being he seems to want the reader to read about his personal life and his love of cars (not to say how good a businessman he is-a claim I found hard to believe even without knowing about his bankrupcy)before they could get to the ahem meat of the Tyson fights-which he describes with no enthusiasm or excitement, rattling them off as if it were obvious there would only ever be one winner.So it's a strangely washed out account of one of the most famous moments in boxing history.
He glosses over the weaknesses he showed in his fights, eg the Bobby Cyz fight ,and breezily reports that the loss to Bowe, when he kayo'd viciously, was a mere TKO and says nothing more.The way he describes it is that ,although he is the humblest guy ever, he really was always the better guy and he was carrying injuries that he didn't want anyone to know about,so as not to detract from the victor.This does get a bit tiresome, although credit where it's due, he admits that the first Lewis fight was a bad result, but as he never moaned about his famously dodgy decision in the 84 Olympics, he does have some moral high ground when he implies that Lennox squealed a bit too much about it.
Purists will love the account of the Qawi fight, and reading his blow by blow account makes you want to seek the fight out all over again to view it.
I would recommend this book on the basis that he is a genuinely inspirational man possessed of rare dignity that the Heavyweight Champ rarely displays.I would adda few caveats that despite his "little old me" sctick, he does like to twist the knife, particularly with Lewis who seemed to get under his skin, by stating verbatim that he dug around in a trash can to get his belt- in fact he likes this phrase so much he uses it whenver anyone gets their belt any other way but in the ring.But hey, he won the title four times so I can cut the guy a bit of slack.Don't expect this to be a classic but it is worth a read.