The first one was November 9th 1996, I was there in the MGM Grand, Michael Moorer fought Frans Botha on the under card. It was different than most of the big fights I have attended. They were making fun of Holyfield, he had just escaped a very difficult fight with a lightly regarded pumped up middleweight (Bobby Czyz) and looked like a shot fighter going in, which is probably why he got the fight in the first place. Evander was an 18-1 underdog and they were calling him "Evangelist Holyfield".

They stopped laughing after the fight started.

When Holyfield did his ring walk for the first Tyson fight, the Holy Spirit came with him. It was a non-secular event for some in attendance, myself included. I have never been very religious, and don't really care to preach, your personal beliefs and relationships with God are just that...personal. But the reality is I experienced some interaction at that fight, sitting in the MGM Grand arena that defies rational, secular explanation. A lot of others there probably did too, I asked a guy sitting next to me about it, and he confirmed that what I was experiencing wasn't delusional. No drugs or alcohol were involved, it was quite an event. Several months after Mitch Halpern stopped Holyfield from beating Tyson senseless he committed suicide,

I came away from that one with this story, and a seriously altered perspective on the Christian belief system and theology. It was like what Big George said, when God tells you to sit down, you don't ask for a chair. God actually showed up for a big fight in Vegas, after all hes God, if he wants to attend a boxing match, who's gonna tell him different. Tyson sure felt it, Mike was terrified on the way out to the ring. Holyfield and his people came out to gospel music, singing and praying and worshiping the Lord. Tyson and his came out, with Mike in a state of total and obvious fear. The rest is pretty much history, Holyfield proceeded to take Mike to school, and eventually Halpern stepped in and stopped the fight in Holyfield favor, giving Mike his second KO defeat.

I didn't attend the second Tyson fight, the infamous ear bite happened, and I, like millions of others watched it on TV. Mils Lane was forced to DQ Mike, but prior to the ear bites, Holyfield was taking Mike apart, beating the crap out of him. Tyson was never the most mentally stable individual, and he just couldn't behave like a champion facing adversity, instead he reverted to the base, classless individual that he always had been, the rest is history.

Yup, Holyfield beat Tyson via TKO in the 11th round of their first fight in November 1996. In the rematch in June 1997, Tyson infamously bit a chunk of Holyfield's ear in the third round and was promptly disqualified in what became known as the "Bite Fight".

Holyfield stopped Tyson on November 9th, 1996, in the first of their two fights (the second being when Tyson was disqualified for biting Holyfield's ear).