Evander Holyfield and steroids

I remember watching the Holyfield-Tyson fights of 1996 and 1997, and thinking how magnificent they looked. Both men entered the ring superbly muscled, each looking like testosterone personified. With Tyson, it was natural; he had been an abnormally thickly-muscled specimen from the time he was 13.

With Holyfield, in retrospect, it was not. He had been the Olympic bronze medalist in the light heavyweight (178 pound) division in 1984, at age 21. He then turned pro, campaigning first as a light heavyweight (175 pounds in the pro ranks), then as a cruiserweight (190 pounds). He won the cruiserweight title at age 24, in 1986. In 1988 he announced that he was moving up to heavyweight.

By the early 1990's Holyfield was a lean 215 pounds. People wondered how he had put on so much muscle so quickly. Holyfield attributed it to his revamped exercise and diet regimen under new trainer Mackie Shillstone.

Here's Holyfield after he had already put on 15 pounds to win the cruiserweight title:

And here here are two pictures of him as heavyweight champion:

You just don't put on that kind of muscle through sparring, hitting the bag, and roadwork. You don't even put it on through weight-lifting.

The dead giveaway with steroids is not just how much muscle you put on, but how it goes on. Steroids always seem to turn the trapezius muscles (which run from the shoulder to the neck) convex, and also give a weird emphasis to the definition between the pectoral muscles.

Here is what Wikipedia had to say about recent allegations that Holyfield had used steroids:

On February 28, 2007, Holyfield was anonymously linked to Applied Pharmacy Services, a pharmacy in Alabama that is currently under investigation for supplying athletes with illegal steroids and human growth hormone (HGH). He denies ever using performance enhancers.

Holyfield's name does not appear in the law enforcement documents reviewed. However, a patient by the name of "Evan Fields" caught investigators' attention. "Fields" shares the same birth date as Holyfield—October 19, 1962. The listed address for "Fields" was 794 Evander, Fairfield, Ga. 30213. Holyfield has a very similar address. When the phone number that, according to the documents, was associated with the "Fields" prescription, was dialed, Holyfield answered.

But we really didn't need all that to know. The only evidence we really needed was visual. 

I point this out because Holyfield is such a perfect example of what steroids do to you: they make you magnificent, in a slightly misshapen way.

None of this, by the way, is to suggest that Holyfield wasn't an extremely brave fighter. He never gave up against the larger, stronger Riddick Bowe, and he wasn't intimidated by Mike Tyson, the most feared fighter of the era. In interviews, he comes across likable and unpretentious. He was in many ways the epitome of a noble warrior; it's just that there was one way in which his nobility was tarnished.