Evander Holyfield’s amateur rival is the only man to have ever struck fear into his heart.
Before embarking on a legendary professional boxing career that saw the ‘Real Deal’ achieve undisputed supremacy at cruiserweight and heavyweight, Holyfield enjoyed a fruitful run in the amateurs.
Holyfield compiled an impressive 160-14 record and picked up an Olympic bronze medal and Pan American silver during his vested days.
However, he lost his first two fights in the unpaid ranks to the same boxer – a young lad named Cecil Collins.
After his first defeat, he ran home and told his mother that he was done with the sport but she informed him otherwise.
“When I lost my first fight at 11 years old, I quit,” said Holyfield.
“My mama said that I had to go back because she didn’t raise a quitter.
“I lost my second fight [to Collins again], and I quit. She made me go back and try once again.”
When they met for a third time, Holyfield welled up with fear when he saw Collins’ name on the bout sheet.
“I was actually at the weigh-in and looking to see what weight he was in because whatever weight he was in I wasn’t going to be in it,” he told VladTV.
“I didn’t see him and when I made it to the final I saw his name, and tears just fell in my eyes.”
In the end, Holyfield overcame his fear to beat Collins at the third time of asking.
He returned home gleefully to tell his mother, who said she was now happy for him to stop boxing.
His response: “I don’t wanna quit anymore!”
In the years that followed, Holyfield unified all the belts at cruiserweight by stopping the wildly underrated Carlos de Leon in 1988 before flattening Buster Douglas two years later to do the same at heavyweight.
Along the way, he beat Mike Tyson twice (the first fight via TKO and the second via disqualification when ‘Iron Mike’ bit a chunk of his ear off) and traded a draw and a loss with Lennox Lewis.
He also bested Ray Mercer, Larry Holmes, Michael Moorer and Riddick Bowe in the space of four years.
In 2017, he was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame, while Ring Magazine rate him as the third-best heavyweight of all time.
