Almost 20 years since Douglas upset Tyson

All of them were great except Mathis.

 

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?

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.

 

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

 

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.

 

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...

 

What was the format?

 

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.

 

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

 

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

 

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.

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.

 

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.

 

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