The fight with Anthony might have taught both Durelle and Shaban some false lessons. In the first round, Yvon had nearly knocked out Anthony. But he had fought too hard in this round and was soon very tired. In the middle rounds, Durelle took a bad beating. In the last rounds, he came on very strong again. From this time on, Yvon and Shaban decided not to work so hard in the first rounds of a fight. They believed Durelle would win if the fight went into the later rounds. It was this thinking that hurt Yvon when he fought Archie Moore.

1957 had been Yvon’s best year for earning prize money. Each television fight earned him four thousand dollars. For the year, Yvon made about forty thousand dollars. Some of this money went to his manager, Chris Shaban. There were many other costs as well. Still, there was enough left over to buy a fourth car which Yvon quickly destroyed.

Also, he bought another boat. He now had two large boats for fishing. But he did not have any time to fish. He was away from home fighting or training nine months out of the year. He had to employ two crews. He could not trust these men. He knew that they were stealing from him, but he didn’t care. He was doing so well himself that the money wasn’t important.

Yvon had two hard fights at the beginning of 1958. Then, in order to keep his title, he had to fight Mike Holt of South Africa. Like Yvon, Holt was a harder puncher, but not a smooth boxer. The fight ended in the ninth round with Durelle the winner. But it was a very hard fight on both men.

As Durelle was to say about Holt later: “He gave me some working over. He broke my nose and some of my teeth. That fight took the best out of me. I couldn’t get my mind into the game after that. I started to be afraid for the first time. That man could fight. He was the worst I ever met!”

A sad thing happened to Yvon shortly after this fight. One night he and his best friend, Stan Martin, had been out drinking. When they were getting ready to go home, Martin stepped behind the car and got run over. He died before getting to the hospital. It was an accident, but Durelle felt very bad for a long time.