36 years ago: Clash For The Crown, Michael Gerard "Kid Dynamite" Tyson vs. Tyrell T "Big Burt" Biggs

This content is protected

"For the first time, a sense of doubt" .

The narrative that has coalesced in the years since has been sort of reductively flattened to "Mike had that

This content is protected

aura until Buster Douglas shattered it" - but, well, not quite. Some minor cracks and fissures were showing as early as '86 (when both Quick Tillis and Blood Green did the previously unthinkable and survived a full ten rounds with the athletic-freak-cum-protégé of the late great Cus D'Amato).

To be sure, the salad days were not over. The young champ still had the Holmes, Tubbs, Spinks, Bruno and Williams conquests ahead of him before it all crashed down around him in what many have called the "biggest upset in sports history". Here though, a full two years and change (28 months to be precise) before Tokyo, pundits were already daring on record to pick against the Pigeon Whisperer.

Experts were not wrong to believe that a prime Tyson was in fact a beatable mortal - but where they erred was pinning their hopes and staking their reputations on Biggs. Even with being proven wrong in hindsight, though, it wasn't altogether stupid of them contemporaneously to feel the undefeated super heavyweight could be the one.

Biggs had as impressive an amateur run as you could ask for. Two defeats at the hands of Teófilo Stevenson in USA vs. Cuba meets - okay, so what? No black mark there, as most consider Stevenson the amateur GOAT or at least in that conversation. Nobody else beat him twice, and very few beat him whatsoever in a stellar campaign through international tourneys in the first half of the decade. Aside from Stevenson, he dominated every multiple fight series involving him - including going 3-0 versus future WBO titlist Francesco Damiani, 3-1 against the underrated & unsung Craig Payne (who defeated both Mike Tyson and Teófilo Stevenson in the amateurs!!!). The feather in his cap? Pitching a five card shutout against one Lennox Claudius Lewis to deny the Jamaican-Canadian-Brit a super heavyweight Olympic medal en route to capturing gold himself in 1984.

Now, while we're on the subject of his amateur days - a quick word on his name(s). That his last is indeed Biggs is about the only certain thing. In a gun to my head situation, I couldn't commit to knowing definitively what his first or middle is. Here's the Cliff's Notes version: early in his amateur career, he was billed as "Big Burt Biggs". At some point he changed to Tyrell. In public records he is listed as "Tyrell T. Biggs" - all of which raises several possibilities. A) his first name at birth was Burt and he adopted Tyrell instead as either a nickname or homage to a relative, maybe a cousin or an uncle or grandfather by that name. B) the same, but vice-versa...born as Tyrell but went by Burt for a time to honor somebody or as a nickname and then changed his mind. C) Could the middle initial itself, "T", be for Tyrell? That would support theory A, that he was born Burt Tyrell Biggs. My sleuthing has been inconclusive on either front.

Anyway, a rose by any other...

As we well know, of course, history did not come any closer to acquitting those who tipped Biggs to slay the immortal than a jury of his peers came to acquitting Tyson in '92.

The fight, from a Tyrell/Burt/whoever fan's perspective, was a disaster. It wasn't that he fought badly. He did a lot of things right, in fact. He did most of what you want a 6'4½" (or six-foot-five; his exact height like his exact name is a murky issue) fighter to do. Stayed tall, moved, jabbed, kept his arms on a dumbwaiter (up and down to block head shots or cover the body) and clinched to stem any maulings.

It just wasn't nearly enough. Iron Mike in the mid to late nineteen eighties may not have been the superhuman being that we whispered about on school playgrounds across the country; he had flaws, and his performances were not necessarily at a consistently peak level and ran on a spectrum with some nights at the office better than others...but even stripping away the illusory trappings of legend and mythmaking, he was still a goddamned savage and h2h beast that few heavyweights in any era can feel confident about surviving, let alone thwarting. A once in a generation physical specimen augmented by all time great coaching (to start off, and then a more than adequate replacement to carry on that foundational work in Kevin Rooney).

Biggsy, for all his dimensional advantages and amateur pedigree, didn't stand a chance. His defense, chin, and stamina were all honestly fine, no worse than average for a HW - but fine ain't fine in this situation. If you're going into this particular cage armed with anything short of exceptional marks in all of those categories, you stand at great risk of being devoured.

Mike ate.

ps - interesting that Harold Lederman stood alone in giving Biggs the opener. All three official judges had a shutout for Tyson as of the stoppage. In fairness, the first was somewhat close - relative to all of the remainder, anyway.

pps - interesting also to hear Barry Tompkins mention that some had observed Tyson's habit of bobbing 4x before coming up and firing. I'm surprised more opponents' camps didn't clock that and try exploiting it with a whack-a-mole counter as part of their strategy...or maybe they did, and I just don't recall on account of having been a little kid.

 

Also, boxing history trivia nugget: this was the last heavyweight title contest scheduled for a 15 round limit (although it only lasted half that).

 

Yep, he showed that a guy of about that size with a decent jab and fair movement could have success...but of course we know in retrospect that Buster Douglas - for all that he seemed far more a hapless underdog than Biggs in those days - in point of fact possessed the superior heart, ruggedness, and firepower.

 

He no doubt had explosive fight ending power in both hands, but the left was his nuke.

To paraphrase Mirko Cro-Cop, "right cross hospital; left hook cemetery".

 

Yeah, could be a nice robust debate.

But we can probably all concede that perhaps the dumbest thing you could do facing a prime Mike Tyson, even more than circling into his cross or hook - is putting yourself in range for his short compact uppercut.

 

Oh cool, I was hoping to hear from someone that agreed with Lederman about the first.

I can see both arguments. Biggs was evasive for long stretches and touched Mike with the jab a fair amount...but the few hooks that got a piece of him looked effective and hurtful enough to already start disrupting his rhythm.