Lennox Lewis got under Evander Holyfield’s skin so badly that he almost climbed out of the ring mid-fight.
The heavyweight titans met for the first time in March 1999 for the undisputed crown at New York’s Madison Square Garden.
Throughout the build-up, Lewis went on the verbal offensive with a series of personal jabs.
Holyfield brushed off comments about his size and age.
But when Lewis accused the born-again Christian of being a hypocrite to his faith for fathering multiple children outside of wedlock, Holyfield snapped.
“Lennox is the only person that I ever let get under my skin,” Holyfield told BoxNation.
“Lennox made it personal. He said to me, ‘How are you going to call yourself a Christian and you have kids outside of wedlock?’
“I thought that was very personal. People don’t take those kinds of shots.
“I didn’t want to stoop that low, but I said, ‘I’m going to knock you out’.
“I shouldn’t have said it because they [the media] asked when, and I said three rounds.
“So I’m telling someone I am going to knock him out, and he is just as good as me, but bigger.
“How in the world am I going to knock this guy out?
“So what I did was I tried to knock him out in the third round, and when I didn’t, all the air went out of me.”
Lewis had wound up Holyfield so much that the four-time heavyweight world champion admits he was on the verge of quitting.
The revelation is made all the more remarkable by the fact that Holyfield was willing to continue fighting after having a chunk of his ear bitten off by Mike Tyson two years prior.
“I was actually getting ready to quit, and the only reason I didn’t quit is because my son was out there,” Holyfield continued.
“I didn’t want anybody to tell my son, ‘you are going to be just like your daddy, when pressure hit him, he quit’.
“If it wasn’t for my son, I would have got out of that ring.”
Following his third-round blowout, Holyfield fought tooth and nail with Lewis to hold the Brit to a disputed draw.
A rematch was made eight months later, and this time, Lewis outboxed ‘The Real Deal’ to get his hand raised via unanimous decision.