Mike tyson and buster douglas fight2/18/2024 ![]() I saw a lot of things in Tyson in the chain reaction when I got up." "That instant could have been a disaster for me. Years later Tyson would stand on stage and count 13 seconds while those in the audience watched a giant screen displaying Douglas getting to his feet. The speed of the referee's count would dominate the post-fight mayhem. A second separated his dreams and disaster. He was earning $6m for the fight but in the corner, with no Enswell 'eye iron' or natural ice pack to hand, his team filled a rubber glove - or as legend has it a condom - with ice and pressed it against the injury.Įight rounds in, he looked set to save himself as a punishing uppercut sent Douglas down. Tyson's left eye grew increasingly swollen as a fighter known as 'the baddest man on the planet' faced true adversity for the first time as a champion. Once the bell rang, the underdog refused to stand in front of the champion, deploying lateral movement, a stinging jab and spiteful blows. "It was like, 'Man, you're going to get it like you've never gotten it before in your life'." "I had so much built up inside of me, I was finally able to release it," he says. In his only other world-title shot - a defeat by Tony Tucker three years earlier - his own father was disgusted with his son and walked out after a 10th-round stoppage. I'd done that before and I was successful against better fighters, so I thought I could do it against a lesser fighter."ĭouglas had a point to prove. Asked if it was indicative of a lax attitude to boxing, he later told the BBC: "Not really. Tyson had slept with two women the night before the Douglas fight. There were volatile relationships, trust in those around him was thin and big players were staking big money on his young and misguided shoulders.īut even word of him being floored in sparring did not dent belief he would walk through Douglas to face Evander Holyfield - who was ringside - in a lucrative bout next. His long-term manager Bill Cayton was engaged in a legal battle with promoter Don King, while Trump - an admirer of Tyson long before his presidency came to pass - acted as an adviser to the young fighter and was posturing to ensure the biggest fights were held at his hotel and casino resorts. He had parted with trainer Kevin Rooney, while his marriage to actress Robin Givens had ended in an ugly mix of public scrutiny, restraining orders and ultimately divorce. His trainer, mentor and father-figure Cus D'Amato had died five years earlier. The turmoil in his life saw him describe his regime of three training sessions a day as "stress relief".Īt the time, Tyson's life was chaotic. If his mother's passing was not enough, Douglas had also split from his wife. "My manager called me and asked if I still wanted to fight," recalls Douglas. She had told friends her son was in a good place mentally to cause an upset. Lula Pearl was the first person to instruct her son to stand up to childhood bullies. In the build-up, punters in Las Vegas placed bets on Tyson of $93,000 to win $3,000 and $54,000 to win $2,000.ĭouglas' mother had died 23 days before the showdown. Tyson was good friends with Donald Trump at the timeĭouglas was 42-1 in a two-horse race. "Opponents would look like they were walking to the gallows," adds Costello. His previous world-title defence had lasted 96 seconds. ![]() Now he brought fear to others and, as the undisputed heavyweight champion, with 37 wins and no defeats, had most men beaten before the sound of the opening bell. Tyson, then 23, had shaken off the kind of fear that saw him cry before teenage bouts. ![]() Their back pages would soon be bursting with upset and scandal fed back from Japan's Tokyo Dome, where the fight took place at 9am local time. The front pages of newspapers on 11 February 1990 were occupied by Nelson Mandela's imminent release from prison in South Africa. Back then it was a case of how do you go away and prove it," recalls BBC Sport boxing correspondent Mike Costello. "I had a call the next day from someone who told me the result. As a result, the stunning upset was largely unseen. In the UK, Tyson's previous title fights had been shown on terrestrial television but the Douglas bout was only available via Sky, which had begun broadcasting a year earlier and then reached relatively small numbers. Listen: 5 Live Boxing with Costello & Bunce - Tyson v Douglas: the biggest upset ever?.Thirty years have passed since the unthinkable occurred. "When I saw him go down, it felt like somebody lied," the lyrics read. It was a day where millions of dollars disappeared for those with skin in the game.ĭecades later, The Killers wrote a song about the chaos. It was a day where desperate corner men made icepacks out of rubber gloves, or condoms, depending on who you believe.
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