How the former champ wound up in a costly fight over the relics of his past glory
Evander Holyfield,the four-time world heavyweight champion and one of the most successful prizefighters in the history of boxing, sat in an Atlanta warehouse watching, helpless, as crate after crate of his belongings was packed up before him and placed on trucks bound for an auction house in Los Angeles.
It was a steamy Tuesday in Georgia. July 17, 2012. Fourteen months since his most recent professional fight. Exactly 437 days since anyone had paid him to do what he was born to do.
He was an aging great who’d just lost his house. A man more likely to be seen raising some much-needed cash by hawking barbecue sauce in the condiment aisle of a supermarket than taking on the best fighters in the world.
Seven years had passed since the New York State Athletic Commission had stripped him of his boxing licence due to “diminishing skills.” But Holyfield had never given up on the dream he’d long ago concocted—that one day he’d retire as the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world. He’d been saying for years that he planned to recapture his titles, never ceasing to verbally challenge the reigning champs—the Klitschko brothers—to a fight.
He didn’t yet realize that the belts he’d soon want back weren’t the ones currently wrapped around the Klitschkos’ waists but rather the ones being loaded onto trucks heading west for L.A. It was those belts, which he’d won from Buster Douglas and Riddick Bowe all those years ago, that were now being taken away by men who could never possibly have touched him in the ring. There were six belts in total, packaged for transport alongside other relics from his career that he’d soon want back as well. Like the robe he’d worn to his match with Douglas, or the gloves he’d used to beat up Mike Tyson on a November night back in 1996. He didn’t yet know that once those belts, that robe and those gloves got on that truck, he’d have to fight to get them back. Or that to win that fight, he wouldn’t be able to use his fists.
His would-be opponent, Darren Julien, never wondered what it would be like to pick a fight with one of the world’s most esteemed (if not dangerous) boxers. He’s been a licensed auctioneer for 20 years, and the 44-year-old has earned a reputation as the man to whom celebrities turn when they want to rid themselves of their worldly goods. Madonna, Barbra Streisand, William Shatner, Michael Jackson and the estates of Marilyn Monroe and Bob Hope have all made use of his services.
The fact that Julien still has Holyfield’s championship belts locked away in his Beverly Hills vault is a contentious issue and the source of an ongoing legal dispute set to play out over the next few months. But on that Tuesday in July, the auctioneer and the boxer were still on good terms. Each man was looking to the other as the potential source of a million-dollar payday.
To fully grasp why one of the greatest boxers of all time is now fighting one of the toughest battles of his life, you must first understand that for all his strengths in the ring, Holyfield is and always has been a vulnerable human being, made all the more so by the size of his wealth. A prideful, generous and impulsive man with an impoverished past, he seemed to cruise through life with his wallet open, spending a million dollars here and a million dollars there. It was the punches he never saw coming that caused him the most pain in the ring and sometimes brought him down. But it wasn’t a punch that caused him to finally lose possession of the belts he’d fought so hard to win. It was his decision to sign on the dotted line, agreeing, allegedly unbeknownst to him, that once his property was taken into the auctioneer’s custody, he couldn’t get it back. And though there was a lot of money to be gained from selling the belts, he refused to let them go (he also refused numerous requests to speak with Sportsnet magazine for this story). No one has ever argued that Holyfield didn’t know how to fight. The question was always whether he knew how to give up.
It takes a combination of time and bad decisions to squander a fortune. Holyfield had been one of the top-grossing athletes in the world from the moment he dropped Buster Douglas in 1990 with a straight right in the third round, becoming the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world and walking out of the Mirage Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas $8 million richer. Smaller and lighter than most of his opponents, it wasn’t until he humbled a 42-year-old George Foreman in a $20-million title defence that Holyfield began commanding respect, becoming an icon and an industry unto himself. He was the voice of Diet Coke, the star of a video game, and he set up his own music label—Real Deal Records—pouring millions into the venture. He donated hundreds of thousands to charity, spread his wealth among friends and family and began construction on an enormous mansion just south of Atlanta. He had its 12 bedrooms, 21 bathrooms and 100-seat dining room carved out of wood and stone to look like a Maltese manor.
By the time he met Tyson for their first fight in 1996, Holyfield had millions coming in and going out at the same time. Seven months later, he lost part of an ear but nonetheless won his rematch with Tyson. He walked out of the MGM Grand $34 million richer. Combined with Tyson’s $30 million for the fight, it was the biggest payday up to that point in boxing history.At that moment, it seemed like Holyfield was invincible—his championship belts were just decoration on the armour plating that was his skin. But it was only a matter of time before he, like every other boxer, began to decline.
Holyfield won an estimated $250 million in a career that spanned three decades, but by 2008—nine years after dropping his titles to Lennox Lewis in a 12-round decision—he’d reportedly lost the majority of his money on a combination of bad investments, lavish expenses, costly divorces and mounting legal fees, and was struggling to keep up with the child support he owed to some of the mothers of his 11 children. Where once he’d owned his Maltese manor outright, he found himself borrowing against it to maintain his lifestyle. In June 2008, the house was on a foreclosure list, and a Utah-based consulting firm was suing him for $550,000 in unpaid loans meant to cover the landscaping bill on the 235-acre estate. Shortly thereafter, Bernard Coleman, Holyfield’s lawyer at the time, reached out to Julien for help. “I am working with [Holyfield] on resolving some urgent business/legal matters right now,” Coleman wrote. “But I believe an auction would be a good thing for Evander. I need to really start figuring out how to get him some good press and position him for possible endorsement deals.”
And so it was that Holyfield soon found himself inviting the man he would one day take to court into his house for a tour of his belongings. It was November 2009, and Holyfield wasn’t yet ready to sell everything. He’d managed to stave off foreclosure for the time being and also to get back in the ring. “Had he committed to auction then, I think he’d still have his house,” Julien now says.
By March 2012, he didn’t. JP Morgan Chase had purchased it at auction for half of what he reportedly owed, but allowed him to stay there for several months. Two years had passed since his third wife had filed for divorce. Meanwhile, he was reportedly behind again on the estimated $500,000 he was paying in annual child support. Holyfield was 49 years old, ancient by boxing standards, but still not retired. He’d won a 10-round slugfest in Copenhagen in May 2011 against Brian Nielsen, an oversized heavyweight with a bum knee, for which he’d earned just $500,000.
In early July 2012, JP Morgan Chase informed him that he had just days to vacate his house. Suddenly, all his belongings—including the countless keepsakes from his career—needed to be quickly removed from the walls and corridors of his manor. On July 10, he left his home. He’d watched as a team of movers packed his life into boxes and shuffled them down his marble staircase and out his front door. He closed the door on the 109-room mansion—said to be the largest in the state of Georgia—and followed the fleet of moving trucks that snaked down his driveway onto Evander Holyfield Highway, all the way to a warehouse on the other side of town. His Versace ties were now in a storage bin next to a giltwood bench, a 32-light chandelier, a grand piano and the regulation-size boxing ring he’d installed in his home gym.
It was the news reports that Holyfield was losing his house that convinced Julien to reach out to see if he might be willing to reconsider an auction. The auctioneer soon learned that Coleman was no longer representing Holyfield because the former champion allegedly owed him “hundreds of thousands in unpaid legal bills.” He was directed to the boxer’s new personal assistant, Toi Irvin, the mother of Holyfield’s son Evan. The same woman who had sued the boxer in 2008 for unpaid child support.
There are two versions of what transpired over the next days and weeks—Holyfield’s and Julien’s. However, both agree that on July 21, with his belongings being stored by a moving company that had been demanding immediate payment of $38,000 in expenses, Holyfield signed an “auction consignment agreement,” granting Julien’s Auctions the right to auction off some of Holyfield’s belongings, which Julien said “could raise him $5–$10 million.” As part of that deal, Julien agreed to: 1) host a first-class auction; 2) throw an extravagant 50th birthday party for Holyfield; 3) pay the outstanding bill to the moving company that had removed Holyfield’s belongings from his house; and 4) advance a further $50,000 to help Holyfield continue the lifestyle to which he’d become accustomed, until his belongings could be auctioned.
Recently, with legal bills mounting, Holyfield has been touring North American grocery stores, promoting his latest money-making venture: Real Deal BBQ Sauce, following Foreman into the lucrative grilling business. Susan Harrison, his lawyer, says she has advised her client not to speak publicly about the dispute with Julien. In an official statement given to the United States District Court for the Central District of California, Holyfield now alleges that he was misled by the auctioneer after he’d lost his house and signed the agreement. “Julien and his staff often told me and my assistant that they were here just to help me, and to make this a good experience for me despite the fact that I would be selling a lot of things.”
According to Holyfield’s statement, he spent portions of three “chaotic” days alongside movers and a pair of representatives from the auction house who “pawed through” his belongings and selected some of his possessions for auction without his consent or knowledge. During the process, he says he was frequently distracted by people wanting to pose for pictures with him and was thus unable to keep a proper watch on what was being loaded onto the trucks bound for L.A. “Once, I asked to see the items they had packed while I was not there, but was told by one of the auction-house employees that it would take up too much time to unpack items already on the trucks, and that I should not worry because they took pictures of everything and, once back in Los Angeles, would have everything inventoried and that the inventory and pictures would be provided to me for my review and approval.”
Meanwhile, Dan Nelles and Michael Doyle, the two auction-house employees who sorted through Holyfield’s belongings, have both stated that at no time did they place any item into the containers to be sent to L.A. unless it was specifically approved by Holyfield or his assistant.
For his part, Julien (who was not present at the warehouse during the days in question) told the court: “For a boxer, such as Evander, the most valuable and important memorabilia to be sold in an auction are boxing gloves and robes worn in famous fights, and medals and title belts won during his career. Without such items, the auction would be of minimal success…I made it clear to him in 2010 and in 2012 that the auction would have to include a large number of these ‘draw’ items and that, once he consigned items to us for sale, he would not be allowed to withdraw any of them.”
The nature and particulars of the dispute rest on whether Holyfield ever conceded his belts and other belongings to the auctioneer. Julien accuses Holyfield of having simply changed his mind about selling the items after they were sent to L.A., while Holyfield says he thought he’d have another chance to reclaim his belongings before the auction. Julien points out that Holyfield approved the July 21 press release announcing the pending sale, which made specific mention of his 1984 Olympic bronze medal and “an amazing array of WBC, WBA and IBF championship belts”—items Holyfield now wants back. Holyfield, meanwhile, says he’d always been waiting for an official inventory of what was for sale before making his final decision on what he wanted to sell. He says he did not receive the inventory until the end of September.
By Oct. 3, Julien was staring at an email from Holyfield’s attorney, which stated that the boxer was considering removing from the auction six of his belts, the gloves he’d worn in his first fight with Tyson and the robe he’d worn in the Douglas fight, along with 11 other items. And when Julien refused to give back all the items, Holyfield began threatening litigation.
Despite the growing dispute, Julien’s Auctions opened its doors to Holyfield’s friends and family on Oct. 19, 2012 and threw him the 50th birthday party he’d requested. Some 300 people attended the bash, for which the walls of the auction house were adorned with many of the items that were to be sold Nov. 30, including all the items Holyfield had said he wanted back. In the days leading up to his birthday, Holyfield had told reporters he would announce his official retirement from boxing during the event (it’s unclear whether he ever actually made an announcement). Regardless, Julien later described the party as a fitting tribute to an aging warrior. And it just so happened to raise significant publicity for what Julien says was going to be the biggest boxing-memorabilia auction of all time.
Thirteen days later, Holyfield filed suit against Julien, asking the court to block the sale of 20 items he didn’t want to auction, arguing they “are all very unique, valuable and irreplaceable, and have extremely sentimental value to me as I look back over my life and career.” Included among those items was a lithograph portrait of Holyfield in the corner of a boxing ring signed by the boxer to his mother. According to court documents, Holyfield decided he wanted the painting back after seeing it in the gallery on his birthday.
On Nov. 21, 2012, a U.S. District Court Judge ordered that the 20 items in question not be included in the Nov. 30 auction and later ordered Holyfield and Julien to seek arbitration to determine whether the items will be auctioned at a later date or returned to the former champion.
Julien says he believes it’s just a matter of time before the belts are sold. He now blames Holyfield for having “cut the heart” out of the auction, which went ahead with the more than 400 items not in dispute. “People who were flying in cancelled their reservations because they didn’t know if it was going to happen. It was really counterproductive for him, for his legacy, for him financially. There was no good out of it whatsoever.”
No longer just seeking the right to sell the leftover items—which he now values at just $1–3 million—Julien also wants financial compensation from Holyfield for damages he says were caused by the failed auction. He also insists that Holyfield is contractually obligated to cover the legal fees incurred as the entire affair plays out in court.
Neither party expects to know any time soon what will become of the 20 items still locked in Julien’s vault.
Holyfield has changed his mind about retirement and recently said he’ll be taking his boxing career “one day at a time.” He is reported to be living in a condo in Atlanta, has been photographed at Braves games and is not speaking about the court battle. In the end, the sale of his other goods brought in an estimated $600,000, none of which has found its way back to Holyfield due to the ongoing legal dispute.
Irvin, his personal assistant, recently explained that the former champ can’t spend time doing interviews with the media. She says he has to concentrate on things that will make him money.
This story originally appeared in Sportsnet magazine. Subscribe here.