Douglas vs Ruddock question

I can hear that you're deeply upset about this, so I will try to help.

There is a myth about Buster Douglas, that he essentially was Rocky Balboa, a complete nobody who miraculously received a title shot and got lucky. And after he beat Tyson he returned to being a complete bum. This isn't true at all. Douglas had a good record, had beaten a still- relevant Greg Page, and came close against Tony Tucker. He was solidly top 10, big, and skillful. The fact that he was such a huge underdog wasn't because he sucked, it was because Tyson was on such a dominant run that he seemed unbeatable. People figured Buster would go the way that other very good fighters went before him. Tyson had mopped the floor with the division and Buster was one of the few remaining.

I doubt that many people see Ruddock as superior to Douglas. I am guessing it's 50-50. But Douglas' quick KO by Holyfield lost him huge respect, whereas Ruddock was seen as being tough as nails against Tyson. You know how much boxing fans love chin. I think if Buster had come in shape against Holy and at least put up a fight, he'd be remembered better. But he was definitely a solid fighter and true world champ.

Head to head it's a great match-up.

Carry on, my wayward son. There'll be peace when you are done. Lay you're weary head to rest. Don't you cry no more.

 

Probably Douglas tending to quit in fights and Ruddock didn't. There's a difference between getting blown out against Lennox Lewis and quitting against Louis Monaco of all people. Also people don't like to have their money wasted on a pay per view where a guy shows up with tits bigger than Laila Ali.

 

I never thought for a moment Tyson was the same after the Douglas loss. Losing is a subtraction, not an addition. And a physical beating culminating in a late round ko is the worst type of defeat---that is what Angie Dundee thought and I agree. A big rebuilding project as a minimum.

Ruddock made the same defensive mistakes against Tyson he did against Lennox. But Mike was not quick enough at that time to come over the top of that lazy slow jab of Razor's. Lewis sure was. The earlier reflexes of Tyson's would have capitalized on such a big opening. The version that fought Ruddock no longer could---no more quick first step and fire over the top to a guy standing there like a heavy bag with his hands low after falling in. But the opening was there.

 

The answer is clear. The Tyson fanboys of course they will try to sell the story that ruddock was a tough opponent because tyson won and that gives tyson credit, but douglas beats Tyson then they must discredit him

 

Because a lot of people who post on message boards were also fans back then, and they remember what was going on at the time.

There was no internet available to most people then.

Truth is, if you were a fan back in the late 80s, nobody really heard of Buster Douglas until he fought Tony Tucker for the vacant IBF belt. People didn't even really know who Tony Tucker was. There wasn't streaming video. Most people didn't even have VCRs to record fights. You saw a guy fight one Saturday. You didn't see him in the ring again for a couple years. They'd show highlights before his fights. You'd think you remembered seeing that fight. Maybe you didn't. Most of the boxing memories you had were from the boxing magazines you collected (if you even did that). You'd see the name Buster Douglas, but not much else.

You couldn't go back and rewatch old fights, for the most part. And the fights that were being sold were classic films from decades earlier (on reel to reel film), not the fights that just happened last week.

Douglas fought on ESPN in the early days when nobody had ESPN. He lost. So people didn't remember him or frankly never saw him. He fought Tucker on HBO, did well, and lost. And was more or less forgotten.

Unless you actually attended his fights, you probably didn't see Douglas again until he fought Tyson. The Mike Williams fight was on the Tyson-Spinks undercard. I borrowed someone's VCR to record that. By the time I hooked it up, most of the Douglas-Williams fight was over. I didn't care. I didn't know who they were. And a party was going on around me. The McCall and Berbick and Page fights Douglas won were on untelevised undercards of HBO shows.

And when Douglas beat Tyson, it was a HUGE deal. Not only because Tyson lost but because 99 percent of the people had no idea who Buster Douglas was.

Douglas was a big deal for about eight months, then he embarrassed himself against Holyfield, and most people never really saw him again - unless they caught him on USA Tuesday Night Fights years later.

Long story short, Douglas was to most people a "one hit wonder" because he was in the spotlight briefly, then he was gone.

Razor Ruddock, on the other hand, had a pretty good build up to the Tyson fight. He was on national television regularly. His fight with Bonecrusher was well-watched. His fight with Michael Dokes was a PPV. His fights with Tyson were billed as the #1 contender vs the #2 contender, both of them were on PPV, both were exciting fights. Both had weeks-long buildups on national television. His fight with Lennox Lewis was a big deal. His fight with Tommy Morrison was a PPV.

For people who watched boxing back then, Ruddock was the dangerous heavyweight contender whose fights they looked forward to watching for several years ... he was a fixture for a time ... whereas Buster came out of nowhere and then disappeared again a few months later.

Today, people go online and watch fights they haven't seen. They look up the fighters' records online in an instant. Compare those records with other records. Do online research. There were no message boards to ask questions like this. You couldn't download anything.

I traded VHS tapes with guys from New Zealand and England in the early 90s, just so I could see fights that weren't on HBO and Showtime. And it would take weeks for them to arrive.

None of that was happening in the 1980s. You watched boxers. If you had a VCR, maybe you recorded a fight. If it was good, you kept it. If not, you taped over it. If you had one or two friends who liked boxing as much as you, you were lucky. You didn't get updates on your land-line telephone that some fighter in England just got knocked out with a link to the actual fight.

So guys like Douglas could fight for years and go totally unnoticed, and guys like Ruddock could get a lot of build up.

And people who were fans back then still have fond memories of anticipating Ruddock's fights and watching them live, but not so much with Douglas.

 

The hilarious part about criticizing Douglas for his 1 sided demolition loss to Holyfield is that Ruddock was similarly destroyed by Lewis in just 2 rounds, but he gets a pass.