Getting over Tyson to see the 'Real Deal

 LAS VEGAS (AP) -- He is over Mike Tyson, even if the rest of us are not.
 "I look forward to matching skills with Lennox Lewis," Evander Holyfield said. "That's the only thing driving me now."
 What a marvel Holyfield is. His victory over Michael Moorer was still fresh enough that a bandage was in place Sunday morning to hide a nasty cut above his right eye. The fight was already a legend in Vegas, but because it went off around 1 a.m. EST, the bout was still a "what-happened-last-night?" in most of the rest of North America.
 Yet Holyfield couldn't wait for everybody else to catch up. He was already off and running in the direction of his next crusade. He plans on taking Lewis' one-third share of the heavyweight title so he can unite it with the two-thirds he already owns.
 That would make Holyfield a complete champion one more time, and an undisputed one. And maybe then, the drive that keeps him going at 35, a drive that has kept him going through adversity and beyond reason, would lessen and let him rest. But maybe not. Maybe Holyfield is just restless by nature.
 He came back and won a heavyweight title after losing it, a feat that puts him in the company of Muhammad Ali. By knocking Moorer down enough times -- five in all -- to convince the referee and a ringside doctor to end his latest fight, he avenged the last of his three losses. He has been part of five of the top 10 pay-per-view events. He has brought in something in the neighborhood of $170 million fighting. Yet he won't stop.
 "They say, 'Why are you still here, you have nothing to prove,"' Holyfield said. "But I do want it. I've fought every fighter in my era. Lennox Lewis is the only fighter I haven't fought."
 This is a man concerned with his legacy, trying to get to that place where Ali, Joe Louis and Rocky Marciano reside. To do so, a fighter has to establish a body of work. He has to have good opposition and it has to be plentiful. Finally, he's got to prove he can survive on a bad night -- the kind where everything starts going bad.
 When you consider the generations that Holyfield's career straddles, somebody else was always ahead of him. Somebody else was going to be great. Larry Holmes is trying hard to become a fading memory. George Foreman disappeared for 20 years. Tyson was a consensus No. 1, now he'll never get close. And once Tyson got cut out of the picture and shipped off to prison, Riddick Bowe got the top spot by beating the daylights out of Holyfield.
 But in the funny way these things sometimes happen, while everybody was looking everywhere for the next great fight, they were overlooking the obvious. Holyfield was there all the time. He refused to go away, or be put out. He knocked down every hurdle in front of him.
 Holyfield won again Saturday night. And though the Canadian-raised Lewis is six foot five and may outweigh Holyfield by 30 pounds on the night they finally meet, Holyfield may find a way to win that one, too.
 He is adaptable and resilient, and if he lacks the kick of a mule, he doesn't lack for stubbornness.
 Lewis, trying to hype the fight, said Sunday, "I'm the best heavyweight in the world. Evander Holyfield might want to say he is, but he hasn't fought Lennox Lewis, so how can he say that?"
 Holyfield's response was, "If the fight can be made, I'll be there."