Almost 20 years since Douglas upset Tyson

[Rumsfeld]

What were your initial thoughts at the time?

And now that 20 years have passed, has anything changed in terms of historical impact/importance?

[Russell]

Well now that we know Tyson's dick was burning the entire fight from some kind of venereal disease he picked up from some Asian hooker... :lol:

[kidargentine]

[Only registered and activated users can see links]

Well we got one the worst boxing video games ever made out of it...

[TKDfighterJoe]

when your mentor dies and you stop training and start smoking crack and banging hookers, you tend to lose to people you would never have lost to.

If cus had never died tyson never would have lost.

[techks]

Cus was the glue that kept Tyson together. After 88 Tyson's best days were pretty much behind him. Yeah he didn't do too bad in the 90s esp. beating Bruno again but with Don King all Tyson had were yes men and he could do what he wanted. Iron Mike would've been so much more had Cus still been living but he gets my vote into the HOF just because well...he's Tyson! Very few fighters can generate the numbers he did.

[Jaws]

[Only registered and activated users can see links]

Well we got one the worst boxing video games ever made out of it...

LOL I was going to post something like this. You gotta love Sega's pathetic "me too" attempt at trying to produce the next Mike Tyson's Punch Out. Talk about a failure....in more ways than one. Just goes to show how big of a deal it was to beat Tyson.

[Jaws]

Cus died in '85 at the very beginning of Tyson's professional career. Tyson did all of his major accomplishments without Cus. It was Rooney, Jacobs, and Cayton who kept Tyson under control for the significant parts of his professional career.

[Russell]

when your mentor dies and you stop training and start smoking crack and banging hookers, you tend to lose to people you would never have lost to.

If cus had never died tyson never would have lost.

He was smoking crack now too huh. :lol:

[techks]

Cus died in '85 at the very beginning of Tyson's professional career. Tyson did all of his major accomplishments without Cus. It was Rooney, Jacobs, and Cayton who kept Tyson under control for the significant parts of his professional career.

But those fights were dedicated to Cus while Tyson still cared about boxing. Rooney was good but couldn't keep Tyson under control.

[CottoDaBodykill]

oh brother cus this cus that ..glue this glue that .. where was cus at when torres and patterson lost? ... no blame game there? ... give it up not even god could have kept tyson on the right track .. .

[techks]

oh brother cus this cus that ..glue this glue that .. where was cus at when torres and patterson lost? ... no blame game there? ... give it up not even god could have kept tyson on the right track .. .

Who's blaming anyone? I know for sure Tyson would've done better with Cus. I'll admit he would've lost sooner or later but it probably wouldn't be to Douglas. Cus could better you to. Cus could turn you into a champ! You need to believe in Cus. Cus is one of the best trainers. Cus even talked to Ali before. Cus was the best! Much love to Cus! Cus made greats. It would be great to be trained by Cus. Annoying ya ain't I?:D

[CottoDaBodykill]

who all did cus train? ..

[techks]

Cus trained Tyson, Torres, Patterson, Mathis. Tha's all I know of...

[CottoDaBodykill]

exactly ...great wrote all over him lmao

[Sardu]

The fight got almost no fanfare and from what I read later the ratings were not unusually high. Most of the people I knew didn't even bother to tune in because they just assumed that Tyson was going to light up another tomato can in a manner of seconds. Douglass was a virtual unknown to the general public. Just a body for Tyson to batter and summarily dispose of. I was watching it alone on HBO, and even though Douglass continued to systematically punish Tyson and put rounds in the bank, I still assumed that Tyson would catch him at any moment and end the fight. When it ended I had to go outside and started shouting - HOLY SH*T!!!!! OMG!!!!!! Tyson lost!!!!! The world for that fight would be surreal... Strange evening in an unforgetable career.... For Douglass, of course, his life changed overnight.... I remembered seeing him in print ads for Pony athletic shoes (Built To Win) and being on all the late-night talk shows.

[techks]

exactly ...great wrote all over him lmao

All of them were great except Mathis.

[TBooze]

What were your initial thoughts at the time?

Damn you Mandela, you have already been in prison for 27 years, is another few days really going to hurt, so you can let arguably the biggest upset in sporting history be front page as well as back page news?

And now that 20 years have passed, has anything changed in terms of historical impact/importance?

So few people seem to respect history anymore, it has lost impact. Anyone not there at the time, truly can not comprehend the shock that went around not just boxing, but the whole sporting world.

[McGrain]

Perhaps no other fighter in history was regarded as quite so totally invincible in the run up to that fight. There was supposedly a magazine - i don't know which one - that penned an article describing why it was physiologically impossible for Mike Tyson to be KO'd. Douglas meanwhile had never fought a 12 round fight. I don't think this is stressed enough. In terms of title credentials he was basically a novice. The clash of invincibility and a fighter with no hope of winning winning, and by KO, is unparalleled in all of the sports history.

Before the Holyfield I fight, Evander, a massive underdog, explained why he would beat Tyson too: "Tyson's not the type to take a lot of punishment. A fighter who is considered great is tested through trials and tribulations. We're not talking about personal life here, we're talkinga bout boxing. How many trials has this man had? One - Buster Douglas This man has been tested one time and he failed."

With 20.20 hindsight, I think there is something in this.



As to Cus's "calming influence", I see it the other way. I think Cus pretty much fucked Tyson up. Sorry. This is from Gruenfeld's book on Holyfield:

"Whenever Mike got into toruble, which was pretty often, Teddy would sit him down and give him a stern talking to and not let him fight for a while. Every time that happened Cus would get upset, because he saw the clock ticking and he didn't want Mike wasting time being unproductive. So he started overiding Teddy, and not just in camp, either. If Mike got into trouble at school, Cus woeuld go tot he principal and try to smooth it over. Same thing with the local police, who knew and admired Cus. It didn't take long for Mike to figure out that he could get away with pretty much anything as long as worked hard in the gym and kept knocking guys out. Cus looked the other way and made sure everybody else did too, and if Teddy trie dto interfere, well, Cus still owned the camp...when Teddy left the camp, he probably took with him Mike's best chacne to become as good a man as he was a fighter..."

There is another story in the same ilk, shorter and perhaps summarising perfectly the problems this relationship had. It goes that Mike came to Cus aged 16 explaining that he was worried that girls wouldn't like him. Cus left the room and returned with a baseball bat which he handed to Mike Tysonand said, "here, you'll need this for fighting of all the women when you are HW champion of the world."

I get a sense that Cus just didn't have time to help Mike develop as a man; like many superstar athletes who are precocious he was developed first as that athlete. When asked why he was picking Holyfield to beat Mike the first time when it was so obvious Tyson was going to triumph, Atlas replied, "because Holyfield is a better man."

And he was right. He was right.

[McGrain]

Damn you Mandela, you have already been in prison for 27 years, is another few days really going to hurt, so you can let arguably the biggest upset in sporting history be front page as well as back page news?.

:lol:

[johnmaff36]

Perhaps no other fighter in history was regarded as quite so totally invincible in the run up to that fight. There was supposedly a magazine - i don't know which one - that penned an article describing why it was physiologically impossible for Mike Tyson to be KO'd. Douglas meanwhile had never fought a 12 round fight. I don't think this is stressed enough. In terms of title credentials he was basically a novice. The clash of invincibility and a fighter with no hope of winning winning, and by KO, is unparalleled in all of the sports history.

Before the Holyfield I fight, Evander, a massive underdog, explained why he would beat Tyson too: "Tyson's not the type to take a lot of punishment. A fighter who is considered great is tested through trials and tribulations. We're not talking about personal life here, we're talkinga bout boxing. How many trials has this man had? One - Buster Douglas This man has been tested one time and he failed."

With 20.20 hindsight, I think there is something in this.



As to Cus's "calming influence", I see it the other way. I think Cus pretty much fucked Tyson up. Sorry. This is from Gruenfeld's book on Holyfield:

"Whenever Mike got into toruble, which was pretty often, Teddy would sit him down and give him a stern talking to and not let him fight for a while. Every time that happened Cus would get upset, because he saw the clock ticking and he didn't want Mike wasting time being unproductive. So he started overiding Teddy, and not just in camp, either. If Mike got into trouble at school, Cus woeuld go tot he principal and try to smooth it over. Same thing with the local police, who knew and admired Cus. It didn't take long for Mike to figure out that he could get away with pretty much anything as long as worked hard in the gym and kept knocking guys out. Cus looked the other way and made sure everybody else did too, and if Teddy trie dto interfere, well, Cus still owned the camp...when Teddy left the camp, he probably took with him Mike's best chacne to become as good a man as he was a fighter..."

There is another story in the same ilk, shorter and perhaps summarising perfectly the problems this relationship had. It goes that Mike came to Cus aged 16 explaining that he was worried that girls wouldn't like him. Cus left the room and returned with a baseball bat which he handed to Mike Tysonand said, "here, you'll need this for fighting of all the women when you are HW champion of the world."

I get a sense that Cus just didn't have time to help Mike develop as a man; like many superstar athletes who are precocious he was developed first as that athlete. When asked why he was picking Holyfield to beat Mike the first time when it was so obvious Tyson was going to triumph, Atlas replied, "because Holyfield is a better man."

And he was right. He was right.
agreed. ive read quite a bit on Cus/tysons relationship from the people who were there and everyone of them,to a man, said more or less the same thing. Cus indulged tyson to the point of wearing blinkers as he saw the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow (not money obviously).

As for the Douglas fight, unless you were about then, people have really no idea how huge this was. 42-1 underdog!!! This was the first tyson fight i never saw live since the ribalta fight on 'world of sport' (ok,that wasnt live either but we didnt know the result and i think it was shown a few days after). Probably the biggest upset since braddock beat baer or clay liston. I couldnt believe it when i heard it as i was a HUGE tyson fan at the time and the frustration i had at not being able to see it for a couple of days almost ate me up.

But let it be known that he was beaten fair and square on the night and ive heard a lot of guys blame stan christololu for a long count on buster and a fast count for tyson. Absolute balls! I had that many arguments over it that i actually timed both counts from the time both fighters shoulders hit the deck, to the time they were both upright and surprise surprise, tyson had a marginally longer count.
Tyson - 13.99 secs
Douglas - 13.61secs

Good fight to watch though

[JudgeDredd]

At the time it was the biggest upset in sports bar none. In hindsight, with Tyson being so poorly conditioned & the turmoil in his private life, it's a wonder he didn't lose before this fight.

[punchy]

Talking about Holyfield it is debateable how much better man he was when we consider the amount of children born out of wedlock to him and the roid allegations. Holyfield appears to be a saint in some peoples eyes though though facts may be different.

[TBooze]

Talking about Holyfield it is debateable how much better man he was when we consider the amount of children born out of wedlock to him and the roid allegations. Holyfield appears to be a saint in some peoples eyes though though facts may be different.

As for children out of wedlock, it is 2010, not 1810; and the steroid allegations are just that, allegations...

[janitor]

[Only registered and activated users can see links]

Well we got one the worst boxing video games ever made out of it...

What was the format?

[fists of fury]

Hmmm casting my mind back...

When I heard Buster Douglas was the next sacrificial offering - sorry - opponent, I literally laughed out loud. Seriously. Douglas was considered nothing but a washout, a limp body for Tyson to pound on for a little while, to keep amused.

Despite the subsequent history of the fight, Tyson back then was being talked about as being virtually unbeatable, and this by scribes who had been in the game for decades. Douglas was a lightly regarded almost journeyman-type fighter and it (at the time) would have been hard to pick a more 'harmless' opponent in the top 10 rankings.

At the time there was a blanket boycott by King on fights shown here in South Africa, so it wasn't possible to watch the fight live. I went to bed not even thinking of the fight really, and reminded myself to check the news on TV early the next morning.

Next morning I got up, made something to eat, and checked the news channel, expecting to read about a one-sided slaughter. (Oh, the irony)
When I first read the result, I thought it was a misprint. "Douglas KO 10 Tyson."
I was mildly irritated because of the misprint, and awaited more confirmation later on...
My dad arrived home with the paper a few hours later, and he was sporting a grin and said "So Tyson lost." (He wasn't much of a fan.)
I can't remember my precise emotions, but I remember me gulping and my heart hitting the bottom of my stomach.
"No way!" I said as he slapped the paper down on the table, with Tyson's prone body lying on the canvas spread across the front page. I couldn't believe it. No way!
Not. Possible.
If I remember, I started laughing at some point because it was utterly MAD. How could this happen? Surely it was some sort of joke? Maybe a bad dream?

As a teenager, when the fighter you idolise loses, it's hard to accept. When Leonard beat Hagler, it was tough to accept. For years I didn't dare watch a replay of that one.
This was different.
Tyson losing (inconceivable) to of all people Douglas made me feel physically ill. I struggled to digest the result for days...and seeing more and more of the fight action in photos as the fight mags hit the newsstands was damn difficult to look at.
I guess I was in some sort of mourning at the time...certainly in a mild state of shock.

If there is one thing I've learned from that whole sordid event though, is that nobody is unbeatable and that the impossible sometimes becomes possible.

[lefthook31]

That Douglas game on Sega was fun. I used to play it and like it. Sega did a good job copying Douglas' jab right hand combo, which was like two straight punches.
I remember that night very well. I was getting ready to go out with some friends and watched that fight with my jaw on the floor. I couldnt even go out after it, I was in such shock.
It was kind of fun to watch Don King screaming at Donald Trump and everyone around the ring as he lost control of the three titles. :yep

[flamengo]

oh brother cus this cus that ..glue this glue that .. where was cus at when torres and patterson lost? ... no blame game there? ... give it up not even god could have kept tyson on the right track .. .

Cotto the cut man.. You'd be a perfect reason to stop the blood flow, hey... Period.

[mr. magoo]

What were your initial thoughts at the time?

And now that 20 years have passed, has anything changed in terms of historical impact/importance?


I was 15 years old and in my sophomore year of high school. By this point, I really hadn't heard much about James Douglas and never seen him fight before. When I saw his record on paper before the fight, as well as heard what people were saying about him, I figured it was going to be a short night's work for Tyson. A friend of mine at the time was going to sleep over night and sneak some beers and weed into parent's house, for us to enjoy while watching the fight in my basement. Something came up and he never made it. I ended up watching Tyson get his ass kicked with a sober set of eyes. :lol:

As for how I felt at the time, and as opposed to how I feel now, my thougths havent' really changed. You had the simultaneously occuring miracles of a lesser man giving the greatest performance of his career, while an all time great was sporting the absolute worst of his.

[lefthook31]

I get a sense that Cus just didn't have time to help Mike develop as a man; like many superstar athletes who are precocious he was developed first as that athlete. When asked why he was picking Holyfield to beat Mike the first time when it was so obvious Tyson was going to triumph, Atlas replied, "because Holyfield is a better man."

Realistically it was Jim Jacobs that was brought into to help Tysons character and image and he was doing a good job until he passed away. They all knew where Tyson came from and that was the reasoning they had Tyson fight, and then shuffled him right back to Catskill to train again. Look at the frequency in which Tyson fought with Rooney and without. They knew if they let Tyson run free he would get into trouble, and so did Cus.
That was the problem with King is that he didnt put the right people around Tyson whereas Lott and Rooney kept Tyson focused on boxing and Kings minions had him focused on women, cars and fur coats. It was inevitable that Tyson was going to implode at some point, but the way Cus handled Tyson had no bearing on how he would be able to handle adversity in the ring, but more to get him there. D'amato knew that education held little importance for Tyson, and thats why he didnt care about it, and ony had him in school to keep him busy until he could box full time and turn pro.

[CottoDaBodykill]

Cotto the cut man.. You'd be a perfect reason to stop the blood flow, hey... Period.
somebody give this guy an award ... seriously hands down he's got jackie gleason beat to peices in the humore department .. my knee is BRUISED from the laughing and slaping of my leg that you just made me do .. oh my lord .. dude said period bwahahaha .. ohhh you just don't see this kinda humore these days ..where were you when they made the tonight show cause carson has nothing on you

[dbouziane]

they had an ESPN "outside the lines" piece on this fight. damn buster was going through some shit. wife left him, mom dies...after watching that piece i tried to get some vids on buster's old fights. he was actually pretty good when he wanted to be, which was only a handful of rounds per fight most of the times w/ his fight against tucker being a good example.

intially, being as young as i was, i was just shocked that tyson lost. looking back on it, douglas is a little better than he was given credit for. he may have had committment issues when it came to training, etc and maybe a little bit of a ticker problem but he sure put it together that night.

[techks]

they had an ESPN "outside the lines" piece on this fight. damn buster was going through some shit. wife left him, mom dies...after watching that piece i tried to get some vids on buster's old fights. he was actually pretty good when he wanted to be, which was only a handful of rounds per fight most of the times w/ his fight against tucker being a good example.

intially, being as young as i was, i was just shocked that tyson lost. looking back on it, douglas is a little better than he was given credit for. he may have had committment issues when it came to training, etc and maybe a little bit of a ticker problem but he sure put it together that night.

Yep. He even beat Oliver McCall. He had the tools but only used them every now and then. They all were present in the Tyson fight though.

[fists of fury]

What was the format?

Cartridge.

They made Evander Holyfield's Real Deal Boxing the year after, using the exact same game engine. It was equally shit. I have it as a ROM on my PC.

[dbouziane]

Yep. He even beat Oliver McCall. He had the tools but only used them every now and then. They all were present in the Tyson fight though.

agreed. and this is why i wanted to see some of his other fights. he looked awesome against tyson. the movement, the bounce in his step, the quick jab, all that was there in other fights too just never w/ enough consistancy to push him over the top. he was right in the tucker fight and then in the tenth round...nothing.

but shit, two weeks after your mom dies...to still round out camp, fight mike tyson for the hw crown, get knocked down and then get up when no one else had and stop him in the next round is really something.

[fists of fury]

ive heard a lot of guys blame stan christololu for a long count on buster and a fast count for tyson.

I think you mean Octavio Meyran. Stanley was probably putting his feet up with a cup of coffee somewhere.

[techks]

agreed. and this is why i wanted to see some of his other fights. he looked awesome against tyson. the movement, the bounce in his step, the quick jab, all that was there in other fights too just never w/ enough consistancy to push him over the top. he was right in the tucker fight and then in the tenth round...nothing.

but shit, two weeks after your mom dies...to still round out camp, fight mike tyson for the hw crown, get knocked down and then get up when no one else had and stop him in the next round is really something.

:good

[Duodenum]

I'd like to see a rematch between these two old farts. (Sadistic, I know.) Leading up to their match, Greg Page dropped Mike in sparring. Pundits brushed it off, saying, "Well, that's Greg Page!" To me though, it was a warning sign.

Douglas was dealing with personal issues, but Howard Davis, Jr. won Olympic Gold and the Val Barker Cup on the heels of his mother's death. Mike Spinks lost his wife in a car crash right before producing the greatest performance of his career to that time in unifying the LHW championships.

Max Baer clowned away his title to Braddock, while Liston pulled a French exit in quitting the championship. Douglas-Tyson was an excellent match with a satisfying conclusion.

[crippet]

In Douglas's 2 year span between 1988 -1990 he was unbeaten 7 times in a row, beat a former world champion, beat a future world champion, beat the current world champion and only lost to a top 10 ATG.
This for me gives him a resume and ATG status above the likes of Riddick Bowe.
I can gaurantee that if Douglas Vs Tyson was an eliminator for a a fight with Bowe, Bowe would have threw the belt in the garbage before you could say 'Chickenly wife forking non Marine'

[lefthook31]

In Douglas's 2 year span between 1988 -1990 he was unbeaten 7 times in a row, beat a former world champion, beat a future world champion, beat the current world champion and only lost to a top 10 ATG.
This for me gives him a resume and ATG status above the likes of Riddick Bowe.

In 1991 Bowe beat former champ Tubbs who was better than Berbick in 89 that Douglas beat, and future champ Seldon, beat Holyfield in 92 and former champ Dokes in 93. Douglas beat Page, although I dont recall the condition of Page, gave up against Tucker, stayed down against Holyfield. Bowe at least defended his title a couple times before losing a close one against Holy again and defended against a guy who had beaten Douglas, although quite a bit later. I dont think it puts Douglas ahead of Bowe, just because Bowe beat Holy twice and fought him three times. Douglas doesnt have any type of consistency like that, but his total body of work certainly is underated at times. I think overall Bowe was a more talented fighter with a bigger heart.

[johnmaff36]

I think you mean Octavio Meyran. Stanley was probably putting his feet up with a cup of coffee somewhere.
i stand corrected. Where did i get Stan from?

[Briscoe]

I was 6 years old when this happened, but this was also the time I discovered watching Sportscenter on ESPN so I knew who the good baseball players to trade for were. I didn't know much about the fight actually happening as much as I was aware of Mike Tyson through "Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!!". I asked my dad who Tyson was and he said, "He only needs a few punches to win the fight". Compared to the amount of punches I put out with Little Mac in Punch-Out!!!, Tyson's KO power made me think of him like some sort of super-boxer. However, I stuck with baseball. I just remember one day I turned on ESPN and they had a load of follow up news. Eventually I figured out Buster Douglas was the "man who beat the man". The thing remember most is Don King arguing for a rematch and the "long" count.

Years later I've seen the fight countless times and I always marvel at this match. Douglas looked like a man on a mission. Those 1-2's were so sharp!

[sweetsci]

The first time I saw Buster was some cable-tv fight against an unknown and he looked awful. I guess I sort of knew about him because I was a bit of a Billy Douglas fan. So going into the Tucker fight I thought Tucker would blow him away. During that fight Douglas really impressed me. Even though he lost and probably quit, he was miles ahead of the Buster I'd seen earlier.

As for Tyson, things started going publicly wrong around the time Jim Jacobs passed away and some folks were saying, myself included, that a good boxer who stood up to Tyson would have a good chance of beating him. I predicted as much with the Spinks and Carl Williams fights. Oops. So going into the Douglas fight I thought the Douglas who looked so good against Tucker had a chance. I didn't think he'd beat Tyson, but i figured he'd give him a fight. Had I seen the Douglas who later caved against Holyfield, Savarese, and Monaco, I would have predicted a very short night. But we hadn't seen that version of Buster Douglas yet.

Come fight night I was at my parents house - they had cable but not HBO - waiting for a friend to come pick me up for a midnight movie ("John Lennon - Imagine"). In those days you could get the sound of scrambled pay-tv channels but not the picture, so I figured I'd tune in and listen to the fight.

I tuned to the HBO channel and it was unscrambled! Awesome! It was round two - okay, Buster made it out of the first - and, hey, he's looking pretty good. From there on I was sitting there rooting Buster on. In round 8 it was like, "Shit! Get Up! Get Up!!!" and in round 10, wow, what a beautiful combination and sequence. Amazing! Even though I sort of thought Tyson would get beat sometime, it was still a major major shock. That night people were going, "Hey, did you hear that Tyson got knocked out?" "No way!"

In the back half of the eighties Mike Tyson was huge. His management did a spectacular job of building him up in full view of the public and Tyson himself delivered spectacularly. Around '89 Will Smith did a song / video called "I Can Beat Mike Tyson" where he was rapping about how he'd beat Tyson. If I remember right, one of the last lines in the song was, "Man, NOBODY can beat Mike Tyson!"

Hard to believe that was all 20+ years ago.

[Jaws]

I was 8 years old at the time, and had never seen a round of boxing in my life, nor did I see the fight. However, Mike Tyson had transcended the sport, and was a household name. He was pop culture, and a synonym for being indestructible. The defeat was something you heard about and was shocked by even if you had no knowledge of boxing at all. I specifically remember thinking to myself "Wow, this Buster Douglas guy must be amazing!"

[TBooze]

Yep. He even beat Oliver McCall. He had the tools but only used them every now and then. They all were present in the Tyson fight though.

The night of the McCall fight was huge, not for the Douglas/McCall bout, as that was a gimme WU Douglas, as McCall was very much in journeyman mode at the time.

No that night Buster owed a huge debt of gratitude to Jeff Sims; who decked Jose Ribalta twice and made him look so bad, that DKP changed the pencilled in Tyson/RibaltaII fight, to Tyson/Douglas.