Michael Dokes: WBA Heavyweight Title, Evander Holyfield & Drug Addiction
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By Peter Silkov
Michael “Dynamite” Dokes was one of the most talented heavyweights of the 1980s, a decade that saw dark forces and outrageous extravagance lay waste to the best part of what was one of the most naturally talented heavyweight divisions ever seen. Amid it all, Michael Dokes’ story is one of that era’s darkest and most disturbing.
Born on August 10, 1958, in Akron, Ohio, Michael Dokes was persuaded to take up boxing by his mother as a way of him avoiding being pulled into trouble on the streets. Dokes proved to be a very successful amateur, compiling a record of 147-7, and winning the AAU and Golden Gloves titles in 1976. Amongst his amateur victims were future world heavyweight titleholders, John Tate and Greg Page.
In the 1975 Pan Am games, Dokes lost to the legendary Cuban Teofilo Stevenson by 2 votes to 3 from the judges. Dokes turned professional in late 1976 at just 18 years of age. “Dynamite” was developing into a 6 feet 3 heavyweight, who like many of the young heavyweights of his time were endowed with a slickness and quickness that belied their size. However, Dokes out of all of them, seemed to have a particularly brilliant mix of speed and power. Dokes was also a larger than life character, who would throw roses to the woman at ringside and surprise the fans with an intelligent and reflective personality, outside the ring. Dokes had developed a love for the good life, fine clothes, fast cars, and fast women, and as his success in the ring grew, so did his immersion into the seamier side of the fast life.
On December 10, 1982, Dokes controversially stopped Mike Weaver in the first round of their fight, to win the WBA world heavyweight title. The notoriously slow starting Weaver was dropped in the first 20 seconds, then after rising quickly covered up on the ropes, while Dokes threw a tremendous barrage of punches, and despite most of the punches being blocked by Weaver, the referee suddenly jumped in, and stopped the fight at just 103 seconds of the 1st round. Although the referee Joey Curtis had clearly stopped the fight too early, Dokes display of hand speed and power had been impressive. Some saw Dokes as being the heir to Larry Holmes, who held the WBC half of the world crown and was seen generally as the true champion of the division, but, success unleashed a monster inside of Dokes, and soon he was partying without any vestige of reason or control. What had been a love of the fast life, became a life hurtling out of control. After beating Weaver for the title, Dokes celebrated by bathing in 20,000 dollars of champagne.
Five months after his controversial 1st round stoppage win over Weaver, the two men fought again, with the fight this time ending in a disputed draw on points, after an epic fifteen rounds. Dokes’ lifestyle was already having an effect upon his performances, as he was notably heavier in this fight, and after a good start, faded down the stretch against Weaver. Most witnesses to the fight believed that Dokes had been lucky to escape with the title still attached to him. Four months after the Weaver rematch, Dokes faced the big-punching white South African Gerrie Coetzee, and after being dropped to one knee in the 5th, was dropped again and counted out in the 10th round; Dokes’ speed and boxing skills had been burned away by his out of the ring lifestyle. The powerful, but much slower Coetzee, dominated most of the fight. Year’s later Dokes would tell a journalist that he had trained for Coetzee on Jack Daniels and cocaine.
Following the defeat to Coetzee, and the loss of his world title, Dokes life and career went into free-fall, as his drug addiction took an increasingly tighter and darker grip upon his life; run-ins with the police became a regular occurrence. Over the next four years, Dokes fought three times, and though he won, he was just getting by on his natural ability.
Then in late 1987, having cleaned himself of drugs, Dokes attempted to resurrect his crumbled career. After becoming bloated by his addictions to alcohol and cocaine, Dokes got his body back into top shape and won eight fights in twelve months, winning the WBC continental America’s championship in the process. The title may not have been the greatest, but “Dynamite” Dokes was back on the edge of the big time once more, with talk of a possible fight with “Iron” Mike Tyson.
Then, on March 11, 1989, Dokes defended his title against Evander Holyfield, who had recently moved up from the cruiserweight division and had started to work his way through the heavyweight division. Together, both men produced a battle that was later voted by The Ring magazine as the best heavyweight fight of the 1980s.In the end, Holyfield’s extra youth and freshness was too much for Dokes, who was ultimately worn down and stopped in the 10th round. This fight showed that although Dokes had cleaned up his act and got himself into top condition, at 31 years of age and after years of excess, his legs and reflexes were not what they had been.
The disappointment of losing to Holyfield sent Dokes into a tailspin and a relapse into his old ways. Although he won three fights over the next eight months, Dokes weight ballooned again, and when struggled to beat Lionel Washington on November 13th of that year, he weighed 253 pounds, compared to the 225 pounds he had scaled for the Holyfield fight, just eight months earlier.
On April 4, 1990, Dokes faced the big punching Canadian Donovan “Razor” Ruddock at Madison Square garden. Despite his problems, Dokes’ fight with Holyfield was still fresh in the minds of the boxing public, and this was his chance to put himself back amongst the top contenders, by beating a rising star. Despite getting himself into better condition than he had been since the Holyfield loss, and having some good moments in what proved to be an old fashioned heavyweight shootout, Dokes was bludgeoned into defeat in four savage rounds. It was a defeat and a knockout that should have spelt the end of Dokes’ career; Dokes didn’t fight again for over 18 months, and when he did return to the ring, he was just an overweight shell of the fighter he had been. Dokes won nine fights in a row, but any hope that this was a sign of a real recovery, both athletically and personally, was quickly dispelled by the mediocrity of the opposition, and Dokes’ own woeful shambling condition.
Incredibility, on February 6, 1993, Dokes was given a world title shot against WBC and IBF champion Riddick Bowe, in what was one of the worst mismatches in the division’s history. Dokes’ preparations were summed up by his eating an enormous plate of pasta shortly before the fight. The ’fight’ lasted 2 minutes and 19 seconds of the first round, with Dokes being dropped and then hammered into helplessness while lying on the ropes, before being mercifully saved by the referee.
This was effectively the end of Dokes’ career, with his last fights being just the fading smoke of a burned up talent. Dokes made his final appearance in a ring on October 11, 1997, being stopped by a Paul Phillips in two rounds. “Dynamite’s” final record was (53-6-2, 34 KO’s.)
After retiring from boxing, Dokes life fell into the darkest shadows of addiction. In 1998, Dokes was arrested for beating up his girlfriend while high on cocaine and alcohol, and was eventually jailed for ten years. Dokes was paroled in 2008, but there was to be no happy ending for “Dynamite”, he was already a sick man and died of liver cancer on August 11, 2010, at the age of 54.
Michael Dokes’ life story is a stark tale of how a life of talent and promise can be ruined in every way by addiction.