A grudge carried three years weighs heavy

#160;LAS VEGAS (AP) -- A grudge can get heavy when even strong men have to carry them three long years.
 That was the vexing thing about the angry glares Evander Holyfield and Michael Moorer exchanged when they met in the center of the ring for the second time Saturday night.
 At that moment, there was no way to tell which found the burden more wearisome. But by the end, there were no longer any doubts. Holyfield took care of the only unavenged defeat on his record by knocking Moorer down every time he got up -- five times in all -- convincing referee Mitch Halpern to waive an end to the fight.
 "He was able to get up each and every time," Holyfield said. "That shows he came to win."
 Moorer had plenty of doubters on this night, just as he had the first time the two fought, in April, 1994. But even though this one ended with Moorer on his stool after the eighth round, he may have showed more courage than in the fight that he won.
 "I beat him the first time, he beat me the second time," Moorer said. "So let's do it a third time."
 Holyfield was not so sure. When the question of a next opponent came up, the first name off his lips was not Moorer, but Lennox Lewis. That's because Lewis holds the WBC championship, the only one of the three heavyweight titles Holyfield does not now own.
 Moorer may not like it, but just as he did the first time they fought, Holyfield calls the shots. And that is because he is the one with more to lose.
 Where Moorer goes from here might be the more difficult question to answer. Afterward, two large, purple welts had been raised on the right side of his head.
 "When you're in a battle you don't feel anything," he said. "But I feel it now. My head is pounding."
 In truth, the rest of him can't feel much better. For all the places the intervening three years have taken Moorer, he won't command more money or respect now. Because while his courage isn't in doubt, his skills are.
 In the first fight, Moorer came in a 2 1/2-1 underdog. Some of that owed to his relative inexperience at the time; Moorer was making only his 13th appearance as a heavyweight. More of it, no doubt, had to do with the uninspired performances that had preceded him; all five of Moorer's decision wins had come since the southpaw moved up in class. His record as a heavyweight since hasn't been much more impressive."
 Holyfield, on the other hand, seems stronger the further out he extends his reach. He not only won, he made good on a promise to make Moorer regret breaking into a premature celebration the first time they fought.
 In the days leading up to the rematch, he talked about that and about how low he sank soon after that defeat.
 "I did get angry in the last 10 seconds when he raised his hands," Holyfield recalled on the eve of the rematch. "I looked at my faults and the reasons I didn't give my all and I left sorry for myself."
 Hours later, he felt even worse. Holyfield went to the hospital after the 1994 fight, believing a rotator cuff injury was the reason for his listless performance. His personal physician believed it was something much more troubling -- a malfunctioning heart.
 The news sent Holyfield into a tailspin. The man who had once no doubts suddenly found them everywhere he turned. Holyfield thought seriously about retiring, then thought better of it after claiming he had been cured by a faith healer. His boxing skills, however, remained so uneven that almost everyone around him remained skeptical. When promoter Don King lined him up for Tyson to knock down along the comeback trail, the Nevada state boxing regulators made Holyfield submit to a battery of medical tests.
 The story of how Moorer got from that fight to this one was gloomier still, because it lacked the redeeming chapter that Holyfield's back-to-back wins over Tyson provided. Days after beating Holyfield, he talked about retiring within a year and just seven months later, George Foreman made it seem like more than idle speculation by knocking Moorer out.
 He won back a piece of the title by defeating Axel Schulz and successfully defended it against little-known Vaughn Bean. But he appeared so disinterested in both fghts, and Holyfield's so rejuvenated, the notion that his win over Holyfield was a fluke became accepted fact the moment the rematch was made. The more it was thrown up to him, the more Moorer used it to motivate him in the gym.
 But it only got him so far.
 Holyfield had plenty to prove and more determination.
 "I'm a better man than I was the last time," he said earlier. Then he went out and proved it.