AC: Did you ever have a particular experience in which it became clear to you that God was the source of all things?

EH: Well, yeah, actually, if you look at the first Tyson fight.

AC: I wanted to ask you about that, because before that fight you gave an interview, and you looked like you were almost in bliss. You were extremely peaceful, and you had a very big smile on your face. Everybody thought you were going to lose, that you didn't have a chance, but what you were expressing was more than confidence. It was almost as if you already knew what the outcome was going to be—and, in fact, that's what you said. It was something like, "Well, I know what's going to happen, and I can't really explain it to you, but you're going to see." Can you describe the state you were in? What was it that you knew, and why were you so peaceful?

EH: Well, that's because the Lord had taken me to another level. See, all my life I'd always wanted to be God's soldier, I'd always wanted to be the one, and I'd pray, "Lord, I want to do something for you, Lord, 'cause you done so much for me!"—kind of like that. But the truth is that the first time I became the Heavyweight Champion of the World, even though I gave the Lord the credit, I kind of thought I had something to do with it too, you know? Yeah! So in reality I was thinking, "I did this and I did that"—and yet I was saying I had committed my whole self to God!

AC: There was some pride left, you mean?

EH: It come down to pride, but I didn't think of it as pride. To me it was more like, "I won this Heavyweight Championship, Lord! Thank you!" You know, you give a shout out: "Lord, thank you!" But I still hadn't had the revelation of you giving your all and then seeing God do it. So I lost it. Then all of sudden I became Champion of the World again, by beating Riddick Bowe, and it was pretty much the same thing. I held it for a second and then lost it again, just like that. Then, coming into the Tyson fight, I was kind of bitter because of everything that had happened after they said I had a heart attack and all this and couldn't fight no more, and then God healed me and brought me back. See, I'd fought my first fight after that against Ray Mercer, and I guess I figured that since God had brought me back it was going to be easy. I guess I thought I'd hit 'em and they'd just sort of flip. But, man, that fight was tough! And I'm like, "Hey Lord, what's wrong?" I remember in the Mercer fight in the fifth and sixth rounds I was like, "Lord, did I make a mistake by thinking that you called me back and you didn't call me?" See, I know that God is always right, so I was thinking, "Maybe I made the bad decision. Maybe God didn't want me to get back in the ring." But as the fight kept going, the guy hit me and cut me, and I was bleeding, and so finally I just said, "Hey, I can't believe this," and when the bell rang, I got back on and I won the fight. Well, then all of a sudden I got this revelation from God that, "Hey, I called you, but you don't want to do your work. You just want Me to do it for you. No way. I do what you can't do."

See, God only does what you can't do. He don't do what you can do. And the only reason I wasn't fighting was because I thought God was supposed to help me, and so I'm not doing my job because I'm waiting on Him to do it. And that's just like being a baby. As a baby you can't feed yourself, so your parents feed you and give you all that nursing. But once you get old enough to feed yourself and you say you're hungry, they just get you the food, and you don't get no food in your stomach if you don't use your own strength to do what you can. So God has shown me that He operates like He taught us to operate—by nature. He gives you the wisdom and knowledge that "I'll look out for you" and all this, but once He done trained you, then you need to do what He trained you to do. And what you can't do, He will bring somebody to give you the knowledge you need. So after that I started understanding: "Oh, yeah. Okay, Lord."

Then my next fight, I lost against Riddick Bowe. I was sick before the fight, but I was getting paid nine million dollars, and it was all about the money. I said, "Now, if I pull out of this fight, I may not get the nine million. So let me go on in there." And this prophet came, and this is what he said: He didn't say, "You're gonna win." What he said was, "This fight is for you to win, if you do the proper thing." He said, "You're gonna knock this boy down in the sixth." And then he said, "If you stay on him, you'll win the fight. Now don't change your mind."

AC: Was this a real person?

EH: Yeah! Anyway, I started laughing because this is only common sense—if you knock the guy down, get on him. That's just nature—get on him! Now I'm sick, though; I had got the hepatitis. But like I said, I had decided to fight anyway, and in the first round I looked so good. But come the second round, I didn't have no energy, and this guy was pounding me all around. Every time he hit me in the stomach it hurt so bad, but I took it all because I was looking forward to the sixth round! And when the sixth came, God said to me, "This is the round." The bell went ding! and I come out, shoo! shoo! shoo!, hit him with a left hook, and bam!—knocked him down! And I thought the fight was going to be over! The guy barely got back up, but I stepped back then, and felt tired, and I didn't get on him. And the next round, he hit me with a good shot and the referee stopped the fight. Just like that—I couldn't do nothing! I came out of the ring, and I said, "Well, hot dog, that's what the man said was going to happen, too." He didn't say I was gonna win, he only told me I was gonna knock the guy down. And my friend, my partner, was crying—and he's a grown man!—saying, "All you had to do was blow on him! But you wouldn't do nothing! Why did you do nothing?!" And all day I just sat there and said, "I don't know why. I don't know why." Then I remembered the man had told me, "Don't change your mind." But in my mind I'd said, "No, I don't want to run out of gas," because I'd knocked him down so early in the round—I knocked him down within the first fifteen seconds. And I had figured that if I didn't get him out right away, then I was gonna run out of gas, I was gonna pass out. So I didn't get on him, which allowed him to come back, and that's what got me in trouble, and then the referee stopped the fight. So then I realized the truth of the facts. It was about the word of God.

Now, about the Mike Tyson situation, well after that fight I lost, everybody talked and they were all saying, "Holyfield? Oh, he is old. He can't do anything." So instead of fighting Tyson I ended up getting another fight with this guy named Bobby Czyz.

AC: Yes, I saw that fight.

EH: A small guy. So I go into this fight and I'm thinking in my mind, "I'm supposed to blow this little guy out." I went in there, hit him with everything. You know, I'm hurting him, but it don't look good because I ain't getting him out. And the boy quit, and everybody said, "Oh, man, Holyfield is really old. He can't even knock that little guy out." So the whole thing is that I'm down in the dumps because everything that I had planned originally had come crashing down, and I was like shaking my head. And my trainer, he said to me, "You kind of dull, ain't ya?" "Yeah," I said, "Man, I just made a fool of myself. I don't know why I just went in there and jumped on that boy like that and didn't use no boxing skills or nothing. You know, I just made myself look bad." And he said, "Yeah, but that fight's been a blessing." I said, "Yeah?" But then I said, know what? You're right. A bad fight like that," I said, "Tyson probably wants to fight me now." Two weeks later, I get a call—they want to fight. They think I've got one foot in the graveyard.

And you know, I kind of felt that way myself. On the point of signing the contract, I go back and start training. My legs are weak, I'm getting beat up by my sparring partner, and all of a sudden the facts start coming up, and the facts are that these sparring partners are beating the daylights out of me! They're not nearly as good as Tyson, and everybody's looking at me with a fake grin, because they know that I'm going to get roasted. And I'm noticing it myself because I tape my fights. So I get on my knees and I pray, "Lord, help me. I don't see how this performance can win." And more and more I prayed—and I prayed and I prayed—and it looked like things weren't going to turn. But I said, "God, I know you don't start nothing you're not going to finish." That's all I had!

And then everybody started questioning me about this Tyson. "Evander, you got kids, you got a family, you just got married, why you want to put yourself in that situation? You're a good guy." But I said, "God is going to see me through." And I just kept praying, and the pep started coming back about two weeks before the fight! Now I had been training for about fourteen to sixteen weeks. All of a sudden, two weeks before the fight, I had a new dance; I would listen to my gospel music, and everything started coming—my rhythm—and I started hitting my sparring partners. All of a sudden, it seemed like they started going into slow motion, and I could hit them. I asked my trainer how I was doin'. He said, "Man, your speed was fast," and I said, "Hot dog! I thought everything looked kind of slow today." And right away I thought, "Oh Lord, thank you! Thank you!"

Then we had a press conference in Vegas before the fight, and when the people looked at me, looked at my arms and all that, the first thing they say is, "He's cheating! He's on steroids! Look how big he is!" And I realized they were feeding all this negative information into Tyson, because if you got people who ain't strong-minded, they'll come back and tell you, "Ah, this sucker is doing this and that," and I knew it was bothering him. He could see that there wasn't no fear. And I could see that with this boy here, Tyson, something was wrong. And so every time they asked me about why I'm taking this fight and what I'm gonna do, I'd say, "Well, you know, the Holy Spirit is leading me into it." Because that's what I believed—I didn't know nothing—no more than, "Hey, Lord! I'm trusting you! This man's supposed to be the baddest man on the planet; that's what they say, Lord, but I know there ain't nobody badder than You!" See, I serve the living God, and when I prayed, God told me, "This is my victory." So realizing that the victory was already mine, I told them, "It's just that the day ain't yet come for me to get it. But then, you'll see." And after a while I said, "I don't want to talk about it no more. You'll see. When the fight is over, you all gonna be talking to me again, and I'll tell you the same thing."

So what happened after that is, I'm getting up the day before the fight and I picked up the paper and the paper said, "Can Tyson Beat God and Evander Holyfield?" Well, now I knew that regardless of what happened at all, Tyson was gonna lose. Even if something had to fall on his head from the ceiling or he had to trip on something, he had to lose that night.

AC: Why?

EH: Because of what was written in that paper! Any time anybody makes a comparison like "Can somebody beat God?"—any time it gets like that, that person gonna lose. Especially if a person is a true believer, when he hears somebody say, "Can that person beat God?"—well, I just knew he was dead. When I read that, I said, "Oh, Lord, thank you for the confirmation. Thank you for the confirmation! This boy, it don't make no difference what happens, it's gonna be awful for him." And it was like somehow, deep down in my heart, I knew that we were all gonna have to work for it, but God was going to help us.

But still I was like, "Well, Lord, you going to help, but let me get it in two seconds." I still didn't want no risk! So in that first round, the bell rang and I said, "Oh, Lord, it would be beautiful if I could go in and get him with one shot." But you know, when you look at it, that's some kind of fear, too, instead of going in and saying, "Well, Lord, okay then. I'm ready to do what you want me to do," and not worry about whether it goes one round or twelve rounds. So that shows that a little of yourself will always jump up in there, because that's the first thing I did, even though when I came down to that ring I just felt the glory of God surrounding me.

AC: When you came into the ring?

EH: Yeah, I felt good! And Tyson, I knew what he was thinking. Tyson's whole thing has always been, "Well, everybody got a plan until they get hit." But I come out there, and I'm just smiling at him, and I'm thinking that he's going to throw a left hook because I'd watched his tapes so much that I already had in my mind that, "He's gonna throw the left hook, and I'm gonna bury him with a right hand, and it's gonna be over." But he threw a right hand and hit me, wham!, and knocked me about two steps back. And so I knew he was thinking, "Hey, well, everybody got a plan until they get hit!" But if you watch the tape, you'll see the plan, because from that point on I tore into him, and every time I hit him, I could just see that he's like, "Oh, my goodness. What is this?!" And it went on and on and on. And the guy actually tried to get out of the ring—you know, he was trying to find a way to get the referee to stop it—"Hey, my eye!" and all that. But the referee didn't see the cut, so I just kept hitting him with good shots. And then when the fight was over and they asked me about it, I said, "It was all God, just like I said. Why would it change now? I was strictly led by the Holy Spirit."

Now up to that point I had never, ever fought a complete fight like that in my life. So I knew it wasn't me! I've always been temperamental. If I'd be hitting as much as I was hitting him, and I was my old self, I would have tried to get him out fast. I would have, boom boom!—hit him—and when he was hurt, I would have thrown him off me, and I would have been trying to, you know, "This is my chance!" But that fight was, boom boom!—hurt him and move off. It was like I was punishing him! I punished him, and I beat him at his own fight, and I moved him around, and I showed the people that it wasn't a fluke. It went eleven rounds! You know, you can knock somebody out and people say, "Well, you know, when a big guy hits you, that's it. "But after eleven rounds, people said, "Whoa! He outmoved him, he outboxed him, he outpunched him, he outdid him in everything! Man! Hot dog!" Some people said, "Well, you know, maybe Tyson took him for granted." But the big thing was all about how people were trying to tell me, "Well, it was you." No, it wasn't. You know, I'm a man who has lived a long time. If it was just me, I would have told you, "All right, yes, I had this master plan, and I cooked it all up. I acted like I was weak here when I fought Bobby Czyz, and I took a little shot from Riddick Bowe to make them think that I was old"—people would love that!

AC: It was just in those two weeks before the fight that you felt something coming—that you knew it was going to happen?

EH: Well, you don't start trusting just in two weeks. But the whole thing is that I trust in God even though a lot of the time I can't see how His plans work. I mean, who in the world would want to get beat up all through practice like that, and then in the two weeks before the fight start tuning up, you know? I had went through all that punishment because I believed that God was going to take me through it—and He did! It's not like I wasn't shaking, but I kept going. It's just like running a race. If you're breathing harder and something says stop, you don't stop; you finish the race, because the only way you can ever receive what God has for you to receive is to go all the way through it. We all can stop and say, "Oh, well, I wasn't going to get it anyway," but the only way to know the truth is to go through it. If you go through it, then you know if it was right or wrong, but if you stop, then one day you'll come back to that same decision that you got to make, because you'll still be lacking the fruit of that knowledge.

AC: You said in prayer after you won your first heavyweight title fight, "I'm the Heavyweight Champion of the World, Lord. Please don't let fame and all the fortune that follows take me away from You." Can you please speak about the temptation of the ego to claim glory for itself when one has accomplished something great?

EH: Well, before me, there were a lot of Heavyweight Champions of the World, but look at their lives and what they done. They made a lot of money, but most of them lost it, or it made them miserable. Fame and money has been their hindrance in life. So seeing all of these things that happened to them, after becoming the Heavyweight Champion of the World I realized that, "Shoot, I worked twenty years to become this guy they consider the Heavyweight Champion, and I'm still the same! Ain't nothing changed! I don't feel no better in the morning knowing that I won the title." And I'm looking at all these people lining up, praising me and going, "Ooohhhh, just let me touch you." So you know what? God, the Holy Spirit, led me into praying that prayer so I would realize, "What is it to be the Champ and make all this money and lose your soul?" See, my whole thing is that I knew I didn't want that, but it's like my mama said: "Sometimes your biggest enemy is yourself." Who's going to make me do something I know better than to do? Ain't nobody going to make me smoke. Ain't nobody going to make me drink. Ain't nobody going to make me get into bed with nobody. I can't use all these people as an excuse to fail, so I have to say, "Lord, I never been in this position before where everybody likes me." Because I came from a neighborhood where nobody liked me. I was poor, and when you're poor you ain't got nothing. But all this praise is a different situation. I've never been there, so I can't say that I'm strong enough—I need help! And I don't need to wait until I fall to call on God; I've grown to the point where I know to ask, "Hey, Lord, protect me from myself, Lord. I want to be around the famous people and all that, but Lord, don't let me get corrupt!" And God has always protected me, and He's protecting me now. You can see I've been the Heavyweight Champion of the World three times, and I ain't been down and out not one time. There's been some boxing speed breakers, the things that sort of throw you off course, but I got back on. God is good!

AC: You've also said, "I may fail God, but God never fails me."

EH: Yeah, meaning that if you took a poll and asked people, "What has Evander done in life?" they'd have to say, "Well, you know, he's failed God a lot." You know, God said, "Don't commit adultery." Well, this guy done committed adultery a lot of times. "Don't commit fornication." This guy done that. God said, "Don't lie." This guy done it—all these things this guy has done. But if you look in King David's life, you'll see King David did a lot of crazy things, too. So when I was down and kind of depressed, God allowed me to read King David's life in the Bible to show me what kind of love He has—to say, "I love you, too." He showed me how Moses was, and He showed him love. He showed me how every great man that He had walking—except for Jesus, who was His son—had their shortcomings. But you know what? God never failed a one of them. And God led Noah, too; He said, "I won't fail you either—if you don't quit." See, that's the only thing God is interested in—not quitting. And He ain't said how fast you'll get there. He just says, "I'll be giving you the chance, as many chances as you want, as long as you keep your heart right." So the whole thing is that if your desire is to please God, and He knows that, then yeah, your shortcomings will still be there, but He will never fail you because He knows you will keep being a force.

AC: During your retirement, you experienced restlessness and eventually you returned to the ring to win the title back. Do you feel that God wanted you to keep fighting for Him or did you decide to return to the ring for yourself? You've already proven the power of your faith through your incredible spirit in the ring, so how much is enough, and at what point will it no longer be God's will for you to serve Him through boxing? And when the time comes for you to retire, how are you going to know?

EH: Well, I only came back because God brought me back. And, just as God ushered me in, He'll usher me out. He brought me in not with fear but with love, and so He'll take me right on out with love—not with the kind of fear some people had that something really, really bad is going to happen to me. God is not about putting fear in you. No, He says, "Look, when you were down in the dumps, when nobody liked you, I was there. I was there in all those moments you were having a hard time—how do you think you got out?" That's God. He lets you know, "I love you before you even love yourself." And once a person gets the revelation of that, that's when they know that they can make it. "You mean that all my life I been sitting here beating this bush, thinking that 'Doggone it, I'm doing it all myself,' and then I find out that God is showing me all this love? Yeah, I'm going to love Him! I'm going to do all that I can!" And once a person makes up their mind, "I'm going to do all I can to please Him," their life starts changing.

Okay, but now the whole thing is that if you ever want to come to the truth itself, you have to realize that when God blesses you, he blesses you in whole. He don't bless you in just one thing. It's just like having mold on your bread—eventually it will cover the whole bread. So when He's finished, your whole life will be blessed. So that's why I'm not worried about it. And that's why when I talk to people I tell them, "We all have a chance in life to be good because we're all, whether we know it or not, God's people. There's things that are in us because we're God—like people, things that if you choose them and work hard at them, you'll get good at. So what could happen that, with all that, you would still be unhappy? You got to look inside." Sometimes they'll say, "That's money that's making people happy. Look, that man's worth fifty-something million—makes sense he would be just about the happiest person in the world, don't it?" But it's not the money. It's not the money! Certainly that's a part of it—having the things you like—but the whole thing is God. It's God that gives you the peace you need so that you can have only joy. All my life, when I was poor, shoot, I had a good time all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah!

See, you can't make nobody rich. The only thing you can do is get them to change their thinking. And see, if you want to fail in life, whether you're a Christian or not, just be lazy. All lazy people will come to poverty at some point in time in their life; either they going to die before they get there, or they going to be poor. Because it's real simple: God don't help nobody who don't help himself. That's why I tell people when I go out and speak, "Hey, I believe in God so much that it moves me to go out and start working." They say, "Huh?" I say, "Yeah! They ain't told you all that? They didn't tell you all that I was hard-working? I work harder than them guys! And you know why I work harder? Because I believe God is going to help me to win. But if I don't work, then how can I believe God is going to help me? God don't help nobody unless they help themselves!"

'Cause look—if you ask me to help you, the first thing I'm going to say is, "Help you with what?" That's because I got to see you doing something before I can help you to do it. You can't be sitting there saying, "I want you to help me carry a bucket." You got to be carrying the bucket! And now, if I start helping you, and you turn loose and go do something else, I'm going to put the bucket down because then I'm not helping you—I'm carrying it myself! Well that's how it is with God. He can't help you if you ain't doing it, and if you're going to quit, then it stops right there. Now He's wondering if you're going to pick it back up so He can start back and help you again. And then if tomorrow you come by and want to pick it up, then we're going to carry it one more step. And if you quit again, I'll stop again. Pretty soon you'll figure out that, hey, if I'm going to help you, then you've got to do something, too. And don't think that God don't operate the exact same way, because that's what He said. "It's not for you to expect to get something for nothing." Now in this world most times people don't want to hear that. They want you to come up and say, "Oh, you know, I was just sleeping and God woke me up. The day of the fight I walked in there and the spirit of the Lord came upon me and I just slayed that man." But you know what? That ain't what God does. There just ain't nobody in the world He'd do that for.