Evander Holyfield Is Not Afraid To Die In The Ring (EXCLUSIVE)

When GlobalGrind walked into Evander Holyfield's luxury hotel room in New York City he greeted us with the glare of a warrior. The 48 year old champion looked to be in great shape. As we set up all we got from Evander were grunts and nods. 

Once the interview got rolling, Evander turned on his charm, wit and charisma and we got to talking to him about stepping in the ring one more time on Saturday to take on Sherman 'Tank' Williams live and on PPV. 

After a 27 year career, is how you train different? 

It’s quite different from when I started off my whole art was to outwork my opponent. Now I have to outsmart my opponent. The fact of the matter is the youth is what your strength is when you’re young but when you’re older it’s the smarts that you have. 

I have to minimize my mistakes because my body doesn’t recover as fast as it did when I was young.

After being counted out after the 2nd Bowe fight, why are you still fighting?

I have faith in God. My mother and my father, we grew up poor. What I was told is that you lean on the word on God if you want to be something.  I guess as a kid and never getting nothing I wanted and with my mother and my grandmother preaching to me 'with Jesus you’ll have everything.' You just believe what they say and I continue to believe and I continue to strive in that from the Ghetto which I came from to who I am is my faith in the word of god it allows me to overcome the things people say. 

When you live in the projects and you are around people who don’t have anything. The first thing they tell you is you ain’t never going to have anything. It was my mother’s words and what they said so it was more them than my momma. I just continued to trust in God and I never stopped.

So even now at 48 years old when they tell me I cant do anything… You ain’t gotta be a genius to quit all you gotta do is listen to what people say they’ll give you every idea In the world to quit. But I believe that’s the easy path. Quiting is the easiest thing to do.

Would it still be quitting? You’ve accomplished so much. No one has accomplished as much as you. You’ve proven yourself. Why still get in the ring?

It’s obvious that I am not finished! You’re good at what you do and somebody comes in and say hey man that’s enough. Why you keep going this stuff over and over. Well why you go to work everyday? They want to control your aspect of life but you know I am not finished you got people who got zillions of dollars they still do what they do because it's the love and it gives them something to offer back to the people. 

With me it’s inspiring people telling people don’t let nobody control your destination control your own destination at least when you stopped you stopped because you wanted too. Not because you were duped into it.

All of a sudden you stopped then what you gonna do? Do you have something else to do after you finished this. I know that life is a journey it’s not an end it’s a journey. I’m sure that when boxing is over it will be something else for me to do that’s bout helping people. Life is about helping people. 

Sports Illustrated said they gave up worrying about you, When people come to you concerned for your health what goes through your mind? 

It lets you know that they are always trying to control somebody’s life... They let somebody else tell them how they are supposed to feel about me. I’m Evander Holyfield! All they do is hear a report then go