The contract for Alfredo Evangelista’s eagerly anticipated rematch with former world heavyweight champion Larry Holmes was finally signed in June of 1980 amid the glare of spotlights and a host of predictions that this second match between Evangelista and Holmes would be just as intense as the first one if not more so. Promoter Don King, never one to miss an opportunity for hype, openly boasted the force of the blows the combatants inflicted on each other would trigger an earthquake if the fight went on long enough. While there no seismic events (at least none that can be confirmed)the night of the rematch, the champion and his opponent certainly did land some ferocious punches on one another in their second engagement.

Both men had considerable incentive for giving a maximum effort to win this fight-- Holmes wanted his title back and Evangelista was intent on silencing the dwindling but still vocal band of critics who questioned the legitimacy of his status as reigning world heavyweight champion. Accordingly, they threw themselves into intensive training regimens that would have left a lesser fighter gasping for air. Holmes in particular embarked on a dietary routine in which every meal he ate was meticulously planned out down to the very last calorie to maximize the amount of muscle mass he would develop prior to the rematch. Every eye in the boxing world was glued on Holmes and Evangelista during the weeks leading up to their second battle in the ring.

By the time the two antagonists met at Joe Louis Arena on August 7th for what was billed as “The Duel In Detroit”, one would have barely imagined five minutes had passed since Holmes and Evangelista had last tangled with one another, let alone nearly two years. The glares they exchanged during the referee’s pre-match instructions and the yelling from the crowd eerily echoed Caesar’s Palace on that November evening when Evangelista had first won the belt. And in a repeat of the highly unfortunate burst of temper that might have contributed to his defeat by Evangelista the first time around, Holmes twice nearly got himself disqualified by hitting below the belt.

After six rounds the champion was ahead on points and Holmes was starting to look(and feel) like he’d run a marathon in concrete shoes. But in the seventh round everything began to change when Holmes landed an uppercut on Evangelista’s right temple that rocked him to the point where the fight nearly ended in a TKO; Evangelista barely managed to totter back to his corner when the round was over, and at the start of the eighth round he was still looking a bit unsteady on his feet from what the judges at ringside could tell. After another near-TKO by the challenger Evangelista was sporting a gash above his right eye and the referee was thinking about stopping the fight because the champion was bleeding. Holmes, though, proved to be very capable of terminating the proceedings without the referee’s aid-- a body blow by Holmes sent an unprepared Evangelista crashing to the mat in the ninth round, and in the blink of an eye his improbable first world heavyweight title reign had ended as suddenly and jaw-droppingly as it began.

The same crowds which had gathered joyously in Montevideo’s main square nearly two years earlier to celebrate Evangelista’s triumph at Caesars Palace now assembled to mourn his defeat at Joe Louis Arena. One Uruguayan parliamentary legislator was so outraged at the way the “Duel in Detroit” had ended he petitioned the country’s president to declare war on the United States in hopes of forcing the US government to return the belt to Evangelista; fortunately for both Montevideo and Washington, the legislator’s petition was turned down. Nonetheless his action spoke volumes about how seriously Uruguay’s national psyche had been hurt by Evangelista’s defeat.

Plenty of Americans were equally as upset that Evangelista had lost the title; the offices of the venerable boxing magazine The Ring were flooded with letters and phone calls accusing the referee who had officiated the second Holmes-Evangelista bout of being either in on a fixing conspiracy or blind as the proverbial bat. One nationally known boxing correspondent even went so far as to express doubts concerning the ref’s psychological health. Evangelista himself left the U.S. two days after losing the title and went home to contemplate his future. A longtime friend of Evangelista’s who had traveled with him to Detroit for the title bout noted that the now-former champion looked extremely depressed for most of his trip back to Uruguay.

However, Evangelista’s mood might have brightened considerably had he known that just a few months down the road he would be granted the opportunity to climb back to the top of the heavyweight ranks. In January of 1981, Holmes’ camp announced the champion had signed a deal with Florida promoters to defend his title in Miami during the second week of April. But just ten days before the bout was due to take place Holmes’ originally scheduled opponent was arrested for assault and a frantic scramble ensued to find a substitute challenger lest the fight be canceled.

Evangelista’s management team didn’t miss a beat; no sooner had the film finished developing on the previously scheduled challenger’s mug shot than Holmes’ camp got a phone call saying Evangelista could be on a plane to Miami in 48 hours and was still in fighting shape. It only took thirty minutes for Holmes’ manager to accept the offer-- and it would take even less time after that for word to start getting out that Holmes and Evangelista would be squaring off for the title for a third time. A rivalry that had seemed almost unimaginable when the two men first fought on that long-ago night in Las Vegas was now starting to become a reality, and the entire boxing world was on the collective edge of its seat waiting to find out if Holmes could repeat his “Duel in Detroit” victory or if Evangelista would recapture the heavyweight title. Nobody was more eager for Holmes-Evangelista III to happen than the Vegas oddsmakers, many of who had Evangelista an even money bet to beat Holmes by decision despite conventional wisdom among the ranks of most sportswriters that Holmes would win by first-round knockout.

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When the day of the fight itself arrived, there was barely a single highway line in the Miami-Dade area that wasn’t jammed with cars bringing eager spectators to the site of Holmes-Evangelista III. Only direct orders from the city fire marshal kept gatecrashers from attempting to sneak into the arena to claim one of the few available floor spaces left in the building after regular ticket-holders came in. Holmes and Evangelista had had to come in several hours ahead of schedule just to be sure they’d get in sufficient workout time before the bout.

The fight itself was so intense it nearly knocked the Miami Beach Convention Center off its foundations. Twice in the fourth round alone the bout nearly ended in a TKO, and in the sixth round the referee was within half a second of finishing his 10 count when a very dazed Larry Holmes finally managed to pull himself back to his feet. For a time it seemed like the fight might actually end in a draw-- a conclusion that wouldn’t have made either of the contestants or the fans in attendance very happy. But after the final bell had rung, and the ringside judges had submitted their overall scores, it would be announced Evangelista had beaten Holmes by a split decision to regain the world heavyweight title.

The Miami crowd erupted like Mount Vesuvius in an ovation for the now two-time world champion. Holmes and his trainer, by contrast, left the ring in a sullen silence; the vanquished two-time former champion barely said a word to the reporters gathered in his locker room before exiting the arena and grabbing a seat on the first plane out of Miami. As painful as his first loss to Evangelista had been, this second one was flat out humiliating. At one point he even hinted to a Los Angeles Times sportswriter that he might retire from boxing altogether.

Had Holmes gone forward with those plans, boxing might have been deprived of a truly great rivalry. But something in him demanded that he not let the Miami defeat go un-avenged. So while Evangelista began prepping for the first title defense of his second championship reign, Holmes steeled himself to get in shape for a highly anticipated fourth battle between him and Evangelista. It hadn’t even been confirmed that another rematch would take place, let alone where and when the latest Holmes-Evangelista showdown would happen, but already Vegas was seeing some heavy betting on the outcome of the match.

Not even the hoopla surrounding Dallas’s “Who Shot J.R.?” saga on TV could top the speculation among fans and sportswriters about what would happen when Holmes and Evangelista squared off with each other for the fourth time in their careers. Would Holmes beat the Uruguyan and retake the belt, or would Evangelista prevail for a third time and finally establish himself as the dominant fighter in this rivalry? No one, least of all Holmes and Evangelista themselves, could claim that they knew how that question would be answered-- but everyone was most definitely looking forward to learning the answer...

To be continued