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Even loser's a winner
"I'm proud of him," she said with a whisper. "I'm proud of my son. He did good. He did all he could.''
Paulette Moorer was on her way back to The Mirage Hotel. Michael Moorer was on his way to the hospital.
"It'll be okay,'' she said to her sister, her nephew, and a limo full of people she didn't know. "They just want to check him out. They do it after every fight.''
RAREST OF TIMES
But this wasn't every fight and every night for Michael Moorer and Evander Holyfield. Saturday night and Sunday morning - and all of it seemed the same - was the rarest of times for a constantly troubled sport.
It was a great night for boxing. And when was the last time anyone could say that?
Evander Holyfield, the people's champion, did precisely what he was supposed to do at the Thomas and Mack Center. He knocked down Moorer five times. He won the fight without question, without controversy. And aside from the first four awkward rounds, which resembled a slow dance going nowhere, Holyfield conducted himself the way champions should.
He was bloodied by a clash of heads in Round 3, confused against the southpaw Moorer, off balance, looking arm weary, until he found his rhythm in the fifth. A straight right hand with 22 seconds left in the round changed everything.
That was the first knockdown. Holyfield knocked down Moorer two more times in the seventh round, both times landing right uppercuts. Holyfield floored Moorer twice more in the eighth round, both on combinations.
Each time he went down, referee Mitch Halpern would ask the same question. "He'd look at me in the eye and say he could go on," Halpern said. "The last time I asked him, he did not answer my question.''
In the end, Halpern looked over to the ringside doctor, Flip Homansky, and there was agreement: The fight would be stopped. There would be no ninth round.
"When I checked (Michael) the round before, he was sharp and focused," Dr. Homansky said. "When I checked him the last time, he did not focus and he did not look at me the way I needed him to. It was my impression that he could not go on."
Moorer didn't see it that way, but when do beaten-up fighters ever see it that way?
"I like these type of fights," he said. "I still got up and fought. No, the fight should not have been stopped. Flip looked at me and I told him I was fine.''
So, Holyfield now owns two-thirds of the recognized heavyweight championship titles, the WBA and the IBF, and Moorer is no longer a paper champion. But Moorer came away, as loser, in a most surprisingly light. When he beat Holyfield the first time, when he became the unlikely champion, there was little interest in his plodding, mechanical, counter-punching style, not to forget his disengaging personality.
But in defeat, there seemed admiration for Moorer's surprising will. He kept getting up, knockdown after knockdown. He emerged a bolder figure in defeat than he ever has been in victory.
"It was his will,"Holyfield said. "He came to win and he showed the courage and desire that you have to have if you want to win. He showed that kind of determination."
The kind of determination that has marked Evander Holyfield's heavyweight career.
STOPPED AND PRAYED
At the end of the third round, after Holyfield was cut and the blood was flowing, the champion closed his eyes, and allowed his corner to do their work while he stopped and prayed. "I wasn't in trouble," Holyfield said. "I just had to get my head together.''
When he finally did, from Rounds 5 to 8, he piled up such a scoring lead in the fight with his astonishing five knockdowns that calling an end to the fight before Round 9 seemed almost merciful.
Where Moorer goes from here is anyone's guess. He no longer has a championship, but perhaps has greater name recognition than he had before.
Where Holyfield goes from here seems clear - at least from the start. He wants a unification bout with WBC champion Lennox Lewis, a bout that should come off in April or May barring complications.
It is the fight boxing fans want to see, the end of the alphabet champions, a fight the champions want. But as pure entertainment, Holyfield-Lewis will have to go a long way to keep pace with Holyfield-Moorer, a fight that had drama, intrigue, courage, and plot twists, and all of it inside of eight rounds.
Steve Simmons can be reached via e-mail at ssimmons@sunpub.com