Evander Holyfield

Evander Holyfield is a celebrity from season 1 of Dancing with the Stars.

Early life
Evander Holyfield was born on October 19, 1962, in the mill town of Atmore, Alabama. The youngest of nine children, Holyfield was much younger than his other siblings and was born from a different father. Holyfield's family later moved to Atlanta, where he began boxing at age seven and won the Boys Club boxing tournament. At thirteen, he qualified to compete in his first Junior Olympics. By age fifteen, Holyfield became the Southeastern Regional Champion, winning this tournament and the Best Boxer Award. By 1984 he had a record of 160 wins and 14 losses, with 76 KO.

Holyfield describes himself as a physical "late-bloomer": upon graduating from high school he was only 5 ft 8 in (1.73 m) tall and weighed only 147 pounds (67 kg). By age 21, he had grown to 6 ft 0 in (1.83 m) and weighed 178 pounds (81 kg). He grew an additional 2 1⁄2 inches (6.4 cm) in his early twenties, finally reaching his adult height of 6 ft 2 1⁄2 in (1.89 m).

When he was twenty years old, Holyfield represented the U.S. in the 1983 Pan American Games in Caracas, Venezuela, where he won a silver medal after losing to Cuban world champion Pablo Romero. The following year, he was the National Golden Gloves Champion, and won a bronze medal in the 1984 Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles, California after a controversial disqualification in the second round of the semi-final against New Zealand's Kevin Barry.

Career
He is the only four-time World Heavyweight Champion, winning the WBA, WBC, and IBF titles in 1990, the WBA and IBF titles in 1993, and the WBA title in 1996 and 2000.

After winning the bronze medal in the Light Heavyweight division at the 1984 Summer Olympics, Holyfield debuted as a professional at the age of 21. Holyfield moved to the cruiserweight division in 1985 and won his first title the following year, when he defeated Dwight Muhammad Qawi for the WBA Cruiserweight belt. He then went on to defeat Ricky Parkey and Carlos De Leon to win the Lineal, IBF and WBC titles, becoming the Undisputed Cruiserweight Champion. Holyfield moved up to heavyweight in 1988, defeating Buster Douglas for the The Ring, Lineal, WBC, WBA and IBF titles in 1990. He went on to regain the Heavyweight title on three further occasions and holds notable victories over fighters such as George Foreman, Larry Holmes, Riddick Bowe, Ray Mercer, Mike Tyson (twice), Michael Moorer, John Ruiz, Michael Dokes and Hasim Rahman.

Holyfield moved up to heavyweight in 1988, winning his first six fights, all by stoppage. On October 25, 1990, Holyfield knocked out Heavyweight Champion James "Buster" Douglas to claim the WBC, WBA, IBF & The Ring Heavyweight titles. He retained the Heavyweight crown three times, which included victories over former champions George Foreman and Larry Holmes, before suffering his first professional loss to Riddick Bowe on November 13, 1992. Holyfield regained the title in a rematch one year later, beating Bowe by majority decision for the WBA and IBF titles. Holyfield later lost the titles to Michael Moorer on April 22, 1994 by majority decision.

Holyfield was forced to retire in 1994, only to return a year later. On November 9, 1996, he went on to defeat Mike Tyson by eleventh round technical knockout to win the WBA title, in what was named fight of the year and upset of the year for 1996 by The Ring magazine. Evander Holyfield became the first Heavyweight since Muhammad Ali to win the World title three times. Seven months later, Holyfield won the 1997 rematch against Tyson, when the latter was disqualified in round three for biting off part of Holyfield's ear. During his reign as champion, he also avenged his loss to Michael Moorer, when he stopped him in eight rounds to win the IBF belt.

In 1999, he faced Lennox Lewis in a split draw, but was defeated in a rematch eight months later. The following year, he won a unanimous decision over John Ruiz for the vacant WBA Heavyweight Championship, becoming the first boxer to win a version of the heavyweight title four times. Holyfield lost a rematch with Ruiz seven months later and faced him for the third time in a draw.

Holyfield retired in 2014 and has a professional record of 44 wins, 10 losses, 1 draw and 1 no contest. He is ranked #77 on Ring Magazine's list of 100 greatest punchers of all time. Evander Holyfield is ranked as the Greatest Cruiserweight of all time by The Boxing Scene.

Life outside the ring
Holyfield is the younger brother of actor and dancer, Bernard Holyfield, and currently lives and trains in Fayette County, Georgia. He is separated from his third wife Candi, with whom he has two children. Holyfield has eleven children with six different women.

By 1992, Holyfield was already a household name, endorsing multiple products on television, such as Coca Cola and Diet Coke. He also had a video game released for the Sega Genesis and the Sega Game Gear: Evander Holyfield's Real Deal Boxing. After his conversion, he started professing his Christianity everywhere, reminding the public before and after his fights that he is a born-again Christian.

In 1996 Holyfield was given the opportunity to carry the Olympic torch when it was on its way to his hometown of Atlanta for that year's Olympics. October 4 of this year he was married to Dr. Janice Itson, with whom he had one child.

He founded Real Deal Records which signed the briefly successful group Exhale.

On September 22, 2007 Holyfield released the Real Deal Grill cooking appliance via TV infomercials. The Real Deal Grill is manufactured by Cirtran Corp.

Holyfield's popularity has led to numerous television appearances for the boxer. His first television show appearance was the Christmas special of the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in 1990, playing himself.

In 2005, Holyfield came in fifth place on ABC's Dancing with the Stars with his partner Edyta Śliwińska. He also made an appearance on the original BBC Strictly Come Dancing "Champion of Champions" showdown, which featured the final four teams from the 2005 edition of the British series, plus two celebrities from spinoff versions, paired with British professional dancers, one featuring Holyfield paired with Karen Hardy, and Rachel Hunter paired with Brendan Cole.

Holyfield also had minor roles in three movies during the 1990s, Summer of Sam, Necessary Roughness, and Blood Salvage (which he also produced).

He made a guest appearance on Nickelodeon's Nickelodeon GUTS during its third season in 1994.

He appeared once in an episode of Phineas and Ferb. In the episode, he is an animated character but the producers wanted to make the most of Holyfield's ear, so his animated character was only given half an ear.

On August 13, 2007, Holyfield was confirmed to participate in a boxing match at World Wrestling Entertainment's Saturday Night's Main Event against Matt Hardy. He replaced Montel Vontavious Porter, who had to pull out after being legitimately diagnosed with a heart condition that was not part of a storyline.

In late 2007 and early 2008, Holyfield was among a number of celebrities to be doing television ads for the restaurant chain Zaxby's.

In June 2008 a legal notice was placed by Washington Mutual Bank stating that Holyfield's $10 million, 54,000-square-foot (5,000 m2), 109 room, 17 bathroom suburban Atlanta estate would be auctioned off on July 1, 2008 due to foreclosure, shortly before that bank's insolvency. Adding to his financial problems, Toi Irvin, mother of his ten-year-old son, filed suit for non-payment of two months child support (he pays $3,000 per month for this child). A Utah landscaping firm also has gone to court seeking $550,000 in unpaid debt for services.[45]

Holyfield appeared as himself in the 2011 remake of Arthur.

On January 3, 2014, Holyfield became the 12th housemate to enter the 13th series of Celebrity Big Brother (UK). On January 6, 2014, he was reprimanded by the show after saying in a conversation with another housemate that gayness is abnormal and can be fixed. On January 10, 2014, he became the first housemate to be evicted.