Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield met at an event in Chicago, and despite their checkered history the two former heavyweights hit it off quite nicely.
Holyfield was making an appearance at a Jewel-Osco on Chicago’s South Side to promote his barbecue sauce, and Tyson happened to be in town performing his one-man show. Though the pair were famous for an incident in which Tyson bit off part of Holyfield’s ear during a boxing match, their most recent meeting was all hugs and smiles, The Associated Press noted.
“I just wanted to see Evander, man,” Tyson said. “I love Evander. I’m forever linked with him for the rest of my life.”
Tyson’s one-man show documents his meteoric rise to become heavyweight champion of the world at age 19, and his fall from grace as he was convicted of rape in the early 1990s. After a run on Broadway, Tyson took the show on tour to 36 cities.
Tyson and Holyfield were able to meet because of a tour stop in Chicago.
“The show is good,” said Holyfield, who told The Associated Press he saw it in Las Vegas. “The show is showing his way of coming back, being able to come to an agreement, come to an acknowledgment of what he’d done good and what he’d done wrong and to get over it. When people don’t get past their problems, they never come to an understanding.”
Tyson has put a lot of effort into getting past his problems and giving back to society. Late in 2012 he established the Mike Tyson Cares Foundation, which creates centers for kids from broken homes.
The next time Tyson and Holyfield meet it will likely be as good-natured as their Chicago stop. The two reconciled in 2009 on the Oprah Winfrey show, and both speak highly of each other now.