Over the past 20 years, I have watched Evander Holyfield accomplish many things I never thought he could do.

I saw him beat the fearsome Dwight Muhammad Qawi (ne Braxton), to win the light-heavyweight title, in only his 12th pro fight. I saw him move up to heavyweight, with that WWE torso perched on Tweety Bird legs, and beat men 15, 20, 30 pounds heavier than himself. I saw him spot 38 pounds to Buster Douglas, the conqueror of the previously unconquerable Mike Tyson, and knock him out with a single punch to win the heavyweight title.

I saw him out-slug George Foreman and outbox Larry Holmes. Finally, and incredibly, I saw him dismantle Tyson in a fight many people dreaded for Holyfield the way a previous generation had feared the Foreman fight for Muhammad Ali.

A former skeptic, I came to believe that in a boxing ring, Evander Holyfield could do whatever he set out to do. But now, I have discovered that there is one thing Evander Holyfield cannot do in a boxing ring, and that is leave it under his own power.

Holyfield is a man who wears his faith on his trunks, and yet he refuses to recognize that someone or something has been sending him not-so-subtle messages over the past three years that it is time to quit.

If being beaten by Chris Byrd and knocked out by James Toney, both former middleweights, in his last two fights weren’t enough, he was reduced Saturday night to playing the opening act for John Ruiz and Andrew Golota, two of the most untalented men ever to be matched in what was called a heavyweight title fight. Holyfield responded with perhaps the worst performance of his 48-bout career. But Holyfield may yet deliver even worse performances.

Back in 1996, after Holyfield rebounded from a dismal showing against Bobby Czyz to deliver the fight of his life against Tyson, I officially retired from the business of advising boxers to retire.

Evander Holyfield is a grown man, wealthier, more successful, and in some ways, wiser than most of us will ever be. Surely he will know the right time to walk away from this form of unarmed combat masquerading as a sport in which he has made his life for the past 30 years.

It could be that for Evander Holyfield, there is no right time, and there will never be one. After all, who among us could honestly determine the right time to die? For Evander Holyfield, to stop boxing would be to begin dying.

He is 42 years old, with nine children and two ex-wives, and Saturday night in Madison Square Garden, he got slapped around by a second-rate heavyweight named Larry Donald. It was his third loss in a row and fourth in his last six fights.

He lost 11 of the 12 rounds on two of the three scorecards, and 10 of the 12 on the third. Except for some brief flurries, Holyfield never looked to have a chance of winning the fight.

Funny thing was, in those brief flurries – starting the first, third, fourth, seventh, and ninth rounds – it was easy to see glimpses of the Holyfield who dominated the heavyweight division throughout the 1990s. In those moments, he was easily the best heavyweight on a card that featured a dozen of them, two of whom, Chris Byrd and John Ruiz, have the nerve to call themselves champions.

But for the overwhelming majority of the bout, it was an old man being kept at bay by a bigger and much less courageous younger man. As the fight wore on, Donald, who calls himself The Legend, grew bolder as it became apparent that the man in front of him wore Evander Holyfield’s skin, but not his skills.

The Garden crowd, which greeted Holyfield’s ring entrance with a thunderous ovation, seemed to have settled into a disappointed murmuring, rousing itself occasionally to chant his name but basically resigned to the fact that the big room was once again witnessing the end of something important.

Joe Louis had been knocked out of the ring by the young Rocky Marciano here in 1951, and while Donald possessed neither The Rock’s fire nor his firepower, the effect was the same.

“My goal is still to retire as the champion,” Holyfield said to a small group of reporters in his dressing room after the fight. Aside from a red swelling above and below his left eye, he was unmarked. His speech was lucid, his demeanor reasonable. He was not defensive or angry. Just determined.

“I don’t see any reason to quit,” he said. “I still feel I can rise to the occasion. Why not continue to pursue my dream?”

Holyfield said that he “felt better” after this fight than the previous losses, because this time, “he never hurt me. I could see every punch coming.” He also cited a back problem that flared up in the second round, preventing him, he said, from driving off his right leg with his punches. When he was knocked out by Toney 13 months ago, it was a shoulder problem, and when he was out pointed by Byrd in 2002, it was something else.

After the Toney fight, Holyfield’s longtime trainer, Don Turner, left him. He could have hung around for the paycheck but he too could see every punch coming. Same for Jim Thomas, Holyfield’s manager. So now, it is just the fighter who remains, surrounded by new faces who either have bought into Holyfield’s incredible self-belief, or don’t mind having their checks written in another man’s blood.

“I haven’t been myself since the second [Lennox] Lewis fight [in 1999],” Holyfield acknowledged. “But it’s not the age. Things have happened to me, it seems like one thing after another. Until I get in there and feel absolutely right and still lose, I don’t see no reason to quit.

“I’m not mad at nobody for what they write and for what they believe about me,” Holyfield said. “I just don’t agree with them. I know this is an unpopular decision, but I’m where I’m at today because I’ve made a lot of unpopular decisions.”

Holyfield’s determination to continue should not be unpopular, just obvious. After 20 years, we should all have known that there is only one thing Holyfield could never do in a boxing ring.

Quit.

Mr. Matthews is the host of the “Wally and the Keeg” sports talk show heard Monday-Friday from 4-7 p.m. on 1050 AM ESPN radio.