Buster Douglas' Performance against Tyson

Do you think Liston looked that quick?

 

You can't deny that Douglas on that night was an exceptional fighter. What a performance. Holyfield can consider himself fortunate that THAT Douglas didn't show up for their fight.

Nice clip, Kevin.

 

I personally don't see it myself. Douglas looks noticeably quicker to me.

 

Yes, Liston was good at taking the precise back steps, retreating enough to advantage his range while boxing behind the jab. A classic boxer.

Wlad was as fast on his feet, imo.

 

Yes.
But I'm not saying Douglas was exceptionally quick in that clip though. What he was doing was measuring it well, anticipating and taking the initiative. Using the correct distance and the correct angles. Good boxing.
There was guys who moved much faster than Douglas who Tyson moved down.

 

Thing I like about the way Douglas boxed Tyson was that he took the fight to Tyson and stood his ground, moving enough to keep his distance correct and he had Tyson guessing from the opening bell.
Few fighters did that with Tyson. Most of them retreated excessively thinking about what Tyson was going to do next, or went on a desperate kamikaze trip, but Douglas already had Tyson's moves down and had Tyson thinking was he was going to do next. Chess match stuff. But it wasn't no pitty-patty and spoiling performance, you can't beat Tyson like that. You need to stand your ground and never give ground unless it is advantageous to your own attack plans. Never let Tyson establish a rhythm. Easier said that down. I think Douglas did that part better than Holyfield did. Holyfield was an exceptional counter-attacker though.
Douglas-Tyson was probably a better fight.

 

I think Holyfield would have been given the credit he deserved more readily had THAT Douglas shown up.
It would have benefitted him. That's Holyfield's peak and he would have won a match with any version of Douglas on that night, shame Douglas wasn't on form. Could have been a better fight, perhaps a great fight.
Still a great win and great performance from Holyfield, regardless.

Yeah, agree. A nice segment of action. :good

 

great clip, do some more... obviously douglas had ton of talent and skills, people can laugh on about tokyo douglas, but he was really something special that night... not many hw's would stand a chance against him.

tokyo douglas and bowe from the first fight holyfield fight, two best versions of big men in the boxing ring imo.

 

On that night buster was brilliant .one of the most complete performances in a fight ever .if buster could fight like that all the time he would be the goat .Brilliant.

 

:good
Well an AGT if not the GOAT!

 

what impresses me the most about buster douglas is his fluidity, his moves are so smooth and he is so light on his feet that is really incredible when you consider he is 6'4 and 230 lbs. never saw a big man like that so fluid and smooth

 

My previous posts might lead you to believe that I am not impressed by this performance from Douglas. This is not in fact the case. I have said that if somebody had been in a coma for 20 years, and you showed them this fight, they would probably think that they were looking at the dominant heavyweight of this generation. Even Oliver McCall said that this version of Douglas would have beaten Lennox Lewis, and it would certainly be in his interests to build up Lewis, at the expense of Douglas.

I have to sound a note of caution however.

The reality that we have to deal with is that Douglas did not do anything either before or after this fight, to suggest that he was one of the best fighters of his generation. This leaves us with the obvious question of whether he trained up to Tyson’s level, or Tyson simply trained down to his level. To believe the former you have to assume that he went from being a second rate contender, to an all-time great beater overnight, and back again overnight. This entails a massive assumption, of the kind that we can’t afford to make in this game.

The bottom line, is that we can’t build out world view around this concept of “Tokyo Douglas”.

 

I can't look at this fight and not feel the result was substantially more down to what Douglas did well rather than what Tyson did poorly.

In this clip Tyson actually is doing what many say he didn't do in this fight - moves his head well and works behind the jab, but Buster still controls the distance and the tempo.

I think Tucker also moved well against Tyson in the first couple of rounds, but I don't feel he ever was as comfortable Douglas - he was moving too much, let Tyson set the pace much more than Douglas did.

A clue to this difference can perhaps be found towards the end of the clip above, when Tyson finally catches up with Douglas but Douglas actually gives as good as he gets and has no trouble keeping Tyson off and pushing him back. He had the strength and confidence to do that, which was a crucial complement to his jab and movement.