Anyone else think Buster Douglas is underrated?

Hmmm.. I sorta' disagree there..... A lazy Douglas would plod and drop a decision to a motivated, spry Byrd in a time machine... IMO!
bbb

Byrd did very well as a puffy heavyweight of + or - 210 pounds from 1998 to 2006...
:good

Not a bum or stiff by NO means... Boring? YES! A bum? NO!!:-(

MR.BILL:hat

 

Choklab's post is really off base. There is no comparison between Douglas and Bowe. Douglas might have been a talented athelete but he never showed the heart that Bowe had. Bowe could actually get through and win a fight when he wasnt prepared physically whereas Douglas would fold up like a cheap suit. Bowe was far more talented as well, thats why he went to the olympics, won a silver medal and had far more consistency in his pro career, and it had little to do with matchmaking and everything to do with the fact Bowe was mentally and physically a better fighter than Douglas.

 

atsch


Johansson stopped Neuhaus, Cooper, Machen, and Patterson in a hot 2 year run. He also beat London in his lackluster final fight. All former/current/future top 10 Ring contenders with Machen being #1 and Patterson being the Champion of course. The third fight with Floyd was also competitive. He is no one night only, for ****'s sake.

 

I think there is more to his fight with Tucker. I felt maybe Douglas was beating Tucker, but that if he was, there was only 1 or 2 rounds in it or something, infact if I recall, some of later rounds were not that easy to score, only reason I bring it up, is its as though some people think he was winning handedly then quit, when in actual fact, it was relatively close imo, that Douglas was legitimately hurt in when it was stopped imo.

 

The fight was very close, Tucker was hanging with him. The difference is Douglas didnt want anymore, he had to work too hard, so he packed it in. Going back to my comments on Bowe, that would have never happened as we saw in the Golota fights. Douglas had a track record of not liking rough fights, and even in the Tyson fight, he was definitely thinking really hard about getting up before he actually did.

 

Quality post. Douglas lacked the fighter mentality to ever be a great champion.

 

I think that Douglas would have simply lasted longer than he did against Holyfield but would have still succumbed to the pressure inside 12 . He was (still) in trouble by Tyson (even in) that night and people here claim Tyson wasn't his best self that night (although I disagree with them but I may be wrong in this one) .
Again , Douglas does have other worthy wins than Tyson.
How will people here excuse his wins over McCall , Berbick and Mike Williams ? they were ****. It solves everything . Larry Holmes and at least the HW version of Michael Spinks fought like **** , but they are considered great here , OK . In the HW division one could always be great while still being a **** fighter , unless he had Frazier's/Byrd's/Norris'/Toney's size disadvantage of course ,
And then being a great fighter still rarely transcends to being a great HW.

 

We have discussed this before, obviously you still think there is no comparison between bowe and douglas but I believe it is a very fair comparison.

As a fighter Bowe did not look any better in the ring than douglas and he had far less competitive fights. As much as he let himself down against holyfeild, I think Douglas would have looked just as good against Bowes other opponents. Bowe did not knockout anyone as good as tyson and buster got up off the floor to win showing he had a good heart.

who thinks hide, donald and golota were any better than mccall, page and berbick when buster beat them?

 

He knocked out Holyfield.

 

True, but not a peak evander me thinks...

Tyson was on top of the world and considered the best thing since sliced bread when buster knocked him out. Tyson was already considered an ATG at that time.