Buster Douglas is an underachiever

if he fought as well as Foreman and Toney did after eating cheeseburgers, well at least foreman .. then he would have done better ... One hit wonder who ultimately was at least 2 tiers below the above mentioned

 

I don't think a single one of those guys were top 10 contenders tho DP.

 

could you elaborate on the marciano aspect?

 

If anyone is interested in Buster Douglas I recommend reading The Last Great Fight he actually attempted a comeback after almost dying and being grossly overweight and there were actual talks with Mike Tyson's team about making a rematch in the late 1990s. Douglas got back in shape and went on a winning streak and then ultimately lost to Lou Savrese after another drastic weight cut and was ill and got knocked out. His comeback campaign was over. Imgaine a motivated Douglas coming back in the late 1990s he would have had the Tyson and Evander Holyfield rematches and possibly if he got that far had an opportunity to challenege Lennox Lewis!

 

Douglas was an underachiever for sure. He had a helluva lot of tools but his heart wasn't overly in boxing hence his fluctuating shape.

 

Were they not ? not even Berbick ? Regardless Douglas was on a hot streak at the time, and had a series of good wins/performances which often gets overlooked. Because people tend to think Douglas never had any good wins or good performances prior to Tyson fight.

With hindsight Douglas should've been seen as more of a threat than he actually was.

 

Pretty sure Berbick wouldn't have been and certainly not the others.

For me Douglas hadn't beaten anyone to be a threat to a juggernaut like Tyson. His last big fight was Tyson victim Tucker who had stopped him.

Tyson was considered virtually invincible and Douglas had very little behind him really. Many thought he gave up against Tucker.

 

I mean i guess it's easy for a young whipper snapper like me, to say 30 odd years after the fact that Douglas should've been seen as more of a threat. As I wasn't born to experience the Tyson mystic that he had during that time.

But i do think Douglas had shown some good performances prior to Tyson fight, as i said looking at it with hindsight the performance vs Mike Williams was a very good one. And solid wins over McCall & Berbick were good ones. But again I'm looking at with hindsight, how highly was McCall rated in the late 80s ?

 

Yeah mate it's one of them times where you really had to be there. Tyson had been walloping fighters considered better than Douglas for ages. Berbick's best days were obviously behind him and he'd recently been beaten by Williams who was also considered damaged goods after being poleaxed by an aging Weaver. At any rate Tyson annihilated him years prior. McCall was a 14-2 nobody at the time and 5 years off beating Lewis. Mike Williams wasn't much regarded either TBF.

The Tyson fight was an aberration tho he was very talented.

 

Nah, the real Douglas was him before and after the Tyson fights. He literally peaked on one night and never came close to recapturing it. He was just a solid run of the mill HW. He didn't underachieve anything, he was what he was.

 

Is this suppose to be some kind of news flash? Everyone knows Douglas under achieved his entire career except two fights, Mike Williams and Mike Tyson. Douglas was handling Tony Tucker fairly easily until he got a little tired and said to hell with it.

 

Sherlock Holmes in the house boys!

 

It was less fluctuating and more circular.

 

How is a guy as limited as Marciano an underachiever? Guy is an ATG champion who retired undefeated!

 

From a business and sporting sense he got it spot on.
He knew going in to that fight that he had to fight and he did, people were so wrapped up in the Tyson hype (Myself Included) that we gave him no chance.
But every good fighter always has one great performance in him no matter who you are and struggle to reach them heights again (Millions in your bank)!!, and BD timed it perfectly unfortunately for Mike.
He had lots going on and was not intimidated by Mike one bit, in fact in one interview he was asked are you scared, to which he replied no, i just see a short guy with a lisp!!