Holyfield, a former four time heavyweight champion, felt Tyson was scared and looking for a way out of the fight, which is why he bit him.
During WBC's 55th annual convention in Baku, Holyfield told reporters that he was never afraid of Tyson and always felt that he could beat him.
"They said I wasn't as good because I had not defeated Tyson, but I was not afraid of anybody. We fought and I stopped him, so we went back to do it again and he bit me twice in the same fight. I knew I could beat him," Holyfield told Carlos Zulbaran.
"With those bites I understood that Mike was afraid because when you do something like that, it's because you want to run and not fight. When I fought with my brothers, I would bite them and then run, so it was the same situation. Biting me was the easiest way out of the fight."
Holyfield also emphasized that his rivalry with Tyson began way before they faced each other in a professional ring, because they were even positioned as rivals in the amateurs.
"People keep talking about that fight [from 1997]. But even in the amateurs many wondered what would have happened if we had faced each other. We both wanted to go to the 1984 Olympics but nobody remembers that," said Holyfield.
"At some point we did some sparring, he was 20 and I was 21. At home I was always the smallest and when I wanted to do something they said I couldn't because I was the smallest, so when I was with him in the ring, in my mind I had it set that I could not lose to someone else."
