Buster Douglas was not a one fight wonder and the "Tokyo" label is borderline disrespectful

Ok buddy. We’ll pretend that the only two fights he ever had were Tyson and Holyfield and ignore the rest. His official record is now 1-1.

 

Douglas was a legitimate powerful contender who would've been a champ before fighting Tyson had he not given up against Tucker- But who KNOWS what would've happened if that was the case.

I think it's a lot more reasonable to say that he built up over time and peaked against Tyson, then was spotty past that point.

He subbed in to fight Cobb when Berbick didn't make it, then he beat Page, Williams, Berbick and McCall in a collection of great wins for him. James has a solid resume even apart from the monstrous win over Tyson- But it makes sense that his crowning achievement would be what he's best known for.

 

I have to admit that I am not a fan of Douglas, but I will begrudgingly say that he at least was a sold/decent/top 10 type guy. But there was nothing particularly special about him other than in one fight, and one fight alone.

When he was 4-0, he got stopped in the 2nd round by a pro debuting David Bey. Remember what Larry Holmes did to Bey?

When he was 10-1, Douglas got an 8-round draw with 207-pound Steffen Tangstad, then 13-0-1. Remember what Michael Spinks did to Tangstad?

When Douglas was 17-1-1, he got stopped in the 9th round by 12-5-1 Mike White. Look at all the losses White had before and since.

Douglas won a majority decision over a past his best Cobb, who wound up losing 4 in a row.

Against 11-0 Jesse Ferguson, a then 19-2-1 Douglas lost a 10-round decision. Watch what happened when Ferguson went up against Carl Williams and Mike Tyson after that, losing clearly to both.

Douglas did win a 10-round decision over 24-4 Greg Page, a solid win, but then again, Page was coming off a loss to Tubbs, and also had lost to Berbick, Witherspoon, and Bey. Still, Page was a solid guy with quality experience against top guys, and had wins over LeDoux, Young, Tillis, Snipes, and Coetzee. Of course, two fights after losing to Douglas, Page would retire after 9 against a 5-5-1 Mark Wills.

Douglas put up a solid, close, and competitive contest against then undefeated 33-0 Tony Tucker for the vacant IBF belt, and showed some ability, but he got stopped in the 10th round of a scheduled 15. Tucker lost his next fight by unanimous decision to Tyson.

Douglas looked good against 16-1 Mike Williams, with a powerful snapping jab, but then again, who was Williams? He had stopped Tillis in 8 but lost a close decision to Witherspoon. After the loss to Douglas, Williams got stopped in 5 by Alex Garcia and 1 by Corrie Sanders.

The 10-round decision win over 35-6-1 Trevor Berbick was a solid win, but then again, Berbick at age 34 was way past his best days of the early 80s. Berbick had beaten Thomas in ’86, but got stopped in 2 by Tyson. He lost a 12-round decision to Carl Williams in 1988, prior to the Douglas fight in 1989.

People point to the Oliver McCall 10-round decision win, which in hindsight has garnered more respect, but then again, McCall was a 14-2 nobody at the time who had lost a 6-round decision to 9-2-2 Mike Hunter. After losing to Douglas, McCall lost to Orlin Norris, then beat Seldon and Ferguson, lost to Tucker, beat Damiani, Lewis, and Holmes, but lost to Bruno.

No doubt Douglas fought beautifully against Tyson. But he still got dropped and nearly counted out by a guy who was completely unprepared and getting whipped and beaten from the 1st round on.

What did Douglas do after beating Tyson? He got stopped in 3 by Holyfield. Picked up his paycheck and disappeared for years.

Douglas came back nearly 6 years later, and after six tune-up wins, got KO’d in 1 by Lou Savarese, a guy Tyson subsequently stopped in 1.

Final analysis is Douglas was a solid top 10 type guy, but I still truly believe he got Tyson on the right night, at a point in time when Douglas was at his best and in top shape and Tyson was not, in part because Tyson had so little respect and fear of Douglas. That same version of Tyson easily could have lost to several guys he previously beat, including Tucker, Williams, Holmes, Thomas, Tubbs, etc.

 

Its a fitting moniker as he never applied the same level of commitment and work ethic to any other fight of his career.
He had buckets loads of talent but it was useless without mental dedication

 

There's no shame in being a journeyman. A journeyman is someone who is reliable but not outstanding.

 

All of these comparisons seem like a very roundabout way to discredit Douglas, and most of em are false narratives anyway.

Comparing incomplete, early versions of Douglas to at the time top ten heavyweights like Holmes, Spinks, and Williams is very odd and doesn't really reinforce the point you're trying to make. Bey had heavy hands, he got penalized twice against Tangstad, and it's pretty clear that although having less fights under his belt, Ferguson was much more complete at the time.

White was the one behind on the cards, not Douglas. Two out of the three judges didn't give a single round to White. Douglas took the fight against Cobb on three days notice and still won, I don't think you can give him much **** for having a hard time when taking a fight that soon. The Williams fight was also a pretty good showing considering the fact that he fought hard against Witherspoon prior.

Past this, there's a lot, and I mean a LOT of downplaying of guys like Berbick, Douglas, and McCall to try and accomplish the narrative of Douglas being a less than special fighter.

Yes, Douglas needed that version of Tyson to squeak a close win out of Mike, but that's a lot more than most others could do. The downplaying of James' accomplishments is pretty nasty here- Especially by ending saying that other guys at the time could've replicated this feat against Mike? I think not.

 

His dad (and brothers?) were boxers, he lived in the gym since he was a kid, he was big, athletic and if his schooling wasn’t good all that experience made him capable of getting up for just about anybody in the division he’s an example of why boxing is mostly mental.

 

The reality is, Douglas was very talented and a bit of an underachiever. But talent and record are 2 different things. This is something many sports fans often fail to comprehend or realize.

Douglas did not have some sort of remarkable or underrated resume prior to Tokyo. While it's true sometimes his lack of truly notable achievements can be exaggerated and occasionally you get weirdos dismissing him as if he was some random guy from a local YMCA gym, the average hardcore fan rates him correctly as a fairly typical contender from that era in terms of his actual accomplishments. There's a VERY good reason his win in Tokyo is cited as perhaps the craziest upset in combat sports history. Had he never fought Tyson or he was KOd by Tyson, he'd be a fairly minor blip in heavyweight history and most people even in his hometown of Columbus wouldn't talk about him much. That ain't disparaging, it's simply reality.

 

Several.

If you're excluding the Tyson win, the following boxers inarguably had better resumes than Douglas:

Witherspoon
Thomas
Weaver
Dokes
Tucker
Spinx

Take your pick.

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Tokyo Douglas on any given night gives the best of the best their toughest fight.

 

No.

 

It really isnt. If we aren't counting the Tyson win he has nothing to compare to the AJ/Fury wins and he lost to a few guys who were worse than Chisora.