In mid-February of 1981, about a month after Holmes-Evangelista III, a Sports Illustrated boxing correspondent met with Larry Holmes in Los Angeles for an interview in which the main topic of discussion would be the two-time former champion’s plans for his future. It was in the course of this interview when the first seeds were planted for Holmes-Evangelista IV. In the bluntest (printable)terms that he could muster, Holmes said point-blank he wanted another shot at Evangelista so he could deflate what he called “the myth of Alfredo”.

      As Holmes probably suspected it would, his comments in the SI interview soon reached the ears of Evangelista’s camp, and they fired back with a few choice words of their own in a two-page article for the Sporting News. A war of words had broken out between the Holmes and Evangelista entourages as fierce as any battle the two fighters had ever waged in the ring; these verbal broadsides would pave the way for the heavyweight rivals to duke it out once again for the honor of holding the world title. But before Holmes-Evangelista IV could become a reality, Evangelists would first have to defend his just-recaptured title against a host of new contenders for the heavyweight crown plus a few men who’d been waiting in the wings for a shot at the belt when Evangelista took the championship from Holmes for the second time.

      One of those challengers was an improbable foe for Evangelista: Gerry Cooney, who was better known for his ever-fluctuating waistline than for his performance in the ring. Cooney had positioned himself at the top of the heavyweight challengers’ ranks with a win over George Foreman in Tampa shortly before the SI interview with Holmes went to press, and he was almost as vocal as Holmes about wanting a crack at Evangelista. For that matter, Evangelista’s camp wasn’t exactly going out of its way to avoid a showdown with Cooney; negotiations for the official contract for the first Evangelista-Cooney bout got underway with Evangelista’s manager proposing no less than five possible venues for the fight, with Madison Square Garden and the MGM Grand as the two favorites.

      Also waiting in the wings for Evangelista: Ghanian sensation Azumah Nelson and Texas-born brawler Randall “Tex” Cobb, both of whom had compiled highly respectable records and were in line for a future shot at the belt if Evangelista won his title defense against Cooney. Cobb in particular had a devastating power punch, and sportswriters in every corner of the boxing world were predicting that an Evangelista- Cobb showdown would be a long, hard-fought contest if it should come to pass; a computer analyst hired by The Sporting News as a consultant ran nearly 25,000 simulations of a Cobb-Evangelista bout, and in all but two of those simulations the fight lasted an average of 8.1 rounds or longer. In fact, at a least a quarter of the simulations predicted the bout would come down to a decision by the ringside judges.

    Then there was Ken Norton, s wrecking machine who’d previously had some memorable matches in the ring against the legendary Muhammad Ali. In the eyes of many sportswriters throughout America Norton would have been a better choice for Evangelista’s next title defense than Cooney, and regardless of the outcome of the Evangelista-Cooney fight quite a few boxing aficionados were certain a showdown between Evangelista and Norton was inevitable. Norton himself had told promoters shortly after the SI interview with Holmes hit the newsstands that he wanted to take on Evangelista the first chance he got, title or no title.

******

    The bout between Evangelista and Cooney was finally signed for the second Saturday in July at the Philadelphia Spectrum. It was the most hotly anticipated sporting event to come to the City of Brotherly Love since the Phillies’ World Series clash with the Kansas City Royals the previous October. Tickets for the fight sold out within an hour after the Spectrum ticket office opened; not even the scalpers were able to get their hands on tickets for the bout after the last skybox seat had been sold. Cable television, while still in relative infancy, was even at that early date already a major force in the media world and there were thousands of subscribers eager to buy air time to watch what was expected to be a blockbuster event. To say the least, the match would exceed those expectations.

    In a slugfest some sportswriters compared to the second Ali-Liston fight, Evangelista and Cooney held each other at bay for eight rounds. Not until 1:20 into the ninth round did the champion begin to gain the upper hand on Cooney, and even then it was by the slimmest of margins; just after the tenth round started Cooney nearly KO’d Evangelista with a right cross to the head. As the challenger continued to hammer away at Evangelista in the eleventh round, it looked like the Uruguayan was going to lose by TKO; he rallied in the twelfth and final round, though, and when the bell rang to signal the end of the fight Evangelista would retain his title by unanimous decision of the judges. It was one of the greatest moments of Evangelista’s career.

    The last crumpled paper beer cups had barely been swept from the Spectrum floor when negotiations got underway for Evangelista to make a title defense in Barcelona against Azumah Nelson. For the reigning heavyweight champion, who’d enjoyed some of the biggest triumphs in his early days as a fighter in Europe, the Nelson bout would be a perfect chance to reconnect with his European fans. For the Spanish government it was a golden opportunity to showcase the new, more democratic Spain for the world press after years of media blackouts under the Falangist regime. For Nelson, it meant being able to test his abilities against the fighter who pound for pound was widely regarded at that time as the greatest heavyweight on Earth-- maybe even win the world title if things broke just right.

     It was a sellout crowd that packed into the Pavello Club Joventut Badalona, the Barcelona region’s principal boxing venue at the time, to see Nelson and Evangelista duke it out in what would prove to be one of the toughest matches either man had fought-- and would fight, for that matter --during his career. For the first six rounds it looked as though Nelson might win by TKO or judges’ decision. But in the seventh round a reenergized Evangelista reasserted his supremacy and unleashed a furious series of body blows that sent the challenger staggering; in the eighth, the champion slammed the door shut on Nelson for good with a right cross to the jaw. The Pavello Club crowd erupted with an ear-splitting ovation when the referee completed his ten-count to confirm one more Evangelista victory.

     For observers of the fight scene, Evangelista’s victory against Nelson was further evidence for the growing belief in South America as the new mecca for heavyweight boxing. The gyms and arenas of countless South American cities drew promoters south of the equator in the hope of finding the next Alfredo Evangelista; few countries were a bigger scene for this phenomenon than Argentina, where since Evangelista’s first win against Larry Holmes boxing had been posing a major challenge to soccer’s traditional status as the country’s national pastime. Conversely, many a young fighter journeyed northward to the bright lights of Las Vegas and Madison Square Garden to show American fans what they could do when given the opportunity to shine abroad.

     No less a figure than Muhammad Ali, who was in a perfect position to comment on such matters, praised the new wave of Latin American fighters following in Evangelista’s wake as the standard-bearers of the future for boxing. It seemed like every other day a new pugilistic prodigy was being uncovered south of the equator, being touted by promoters or trainers as the next Alfredo Evangelista. Meanwhile the original Evangelista was busy getting prepped for his long-awaited showdown with the man hoping to bring his legend to an end, Larry Holmes.

******

      Holmes-Evangelista IV finally took place in June of 1982, nearly a year after the champion’s victory over Gerry Cooney in Philadelphia. A near-capacity crowd packed the Superdome in New Orleans to watch Holmes and Evangelista assault each other like mountain bighorn sheep fighting to win a mate; in the third round alone the fight twice came within a cat's whisker of ending in a TKO, and in the sixth round Evangelista was on the canvas for a count of seven before getting back on his feet to continue the bout. By the eighth round both men were starting to bleed, prompting some of the sportswriters covering the bout to wonder if the referee was going to stop it because one or both contestants were unable to continue. But with just one minute left in the ninth round, Holmes delivered one of the most devastating blows-- if not the most devastating blow --he’d ever landed on an opponent in his career, an uppercut that toppled Evangelista like a wrecking ball smashing the side of a condemned building. The fans in the usually noisy Superdome fell into an almost tomb-like silence when the referee finished his ten-count and the bell rang to signal that Larry Holmes was once again the heavyweight champion of the world.

     The news of Evangelista’s defeat was greeted in his native Uruguay with headlines normally reserved for a declaration of war or a horrific natural disaster. “TRAGEDY!” screamed the front page of one Montevideo newspaper. Another dubbed the fight’s outcome “A Nightmare Beyond Words”. The lead anchor for Uruguay’s most-watched TV news program was fighting back tears as he read the official announcement of Evangelista’s loss. A sports columnist for a Minas newspaper was distraught by the outcome of the match he ended up committing suicide; police found his body two days later. The Uruguayan parliament even went so far as to hold a moment of silence in its chambers, as if mourning a fallen hero. Montevideo’s main square was the scene of massive protests accusing the referee of being in the tank for Holmes and demanding an international inquiry into alleged improprieties regarding the way Holmes-Evangelista IV was officiated. At least a dozen people were arrested for vandalism and disturbing the peace after throwing rocks at the U.S. embassy in Montevideo.

     As for Evangelista himself, he had little to say about his defeat in Holmes-Evangelista IV other than that it upset him and he felt he had let his fellow countrymen down. Those words were the last public statement he would make for some time to come; he all but vanished from the public eye for a long time, and after he had been gone from it for a full six months the international sports media began pondering if the Superdome bout might not have marked the end of his career...

To be continued