When Tyson sent Douglas to the floor in the eighth round, the Tyson camp complainted that the count was slow and that Douglas had taken longer than ten seconds to get to his feet. I believe that too....
Boxing has a ten count, not a ten second count, the ref is the sole judge of the speed of the count. Douglas, like Tunney before him, was smart enough and clear headed enough to follow the count and get up before ten. As DKP and the WBC found out, legally, case closed. If boxing was an exact science, a buzzer would do the count ala the amateurs.
I timed both knockdowns with a stopwatch,from when they landed on the broad of their back until they got up , and Tysons count was marginally longer. Nobody gave buster his dues that night except the IBF, who shot right up in my estimation. The rest all hmmmed and haaaed for a few days
Use Stevie G's topic for thoughts on this fight, he posted his first. http://www.eastsideboxing.com/forum/showthread.php?t=288519&page=2
LOL, it is on a different context of the subject, and if you are getting technical, I posted first! http://www.eastsideboxing.com/forum/showthread.php?t=288515
When Douglas fell to the floor, following the Tyson Punch, he was clearly conscious and only slightly ruffled. James Douglas even showed anger and surprise that he had been knocked down. Clearly he was quite confident of beating Tyson, depite the overwhelming odds against him. The relatively slow count, if it were that slow, was irrelevant.
I agree with Tbooze's reply and i also add that Douglas was more determined to win the fight since his mother had died 23 days prior to he fight. Mike Tyson's mind was not in his best ( mentally) after his divorce..
The arguement from the DKP camp was that Meyran did not properly pick up the count of the ringside official in charge of counting the knockdown seconds and in fact he was a second or two off. It was bull****, Buster was focused on the ref and his count which is all you can ask of him. Buster picked up the count, although I do believe he was thinking about staying down by waiting till the last second to get up with his head down just like he did when he was stopped against Tucker, almost like if the ref waved it off, so be it. Buster was a little lean in the guts department, but he got back up and the bell rang. Kudos to his corner for getting him back in the fight and finishing like a real champ but I believe Buster would have been stopped had that knockdown happened mid round.
Agree with Salty, always thought Douglas was thinking twice about getting up. But to his credit he did get up, and the rest is history
Great performance by Douglass, Mike wasnt there mentally. Douglass got up at the count of ten, he could have been counted out imo. Mike got up at ten as well, but was shaky and had been taking many flush shots. But yes there was a clear differential between the ringside guy's count and the ref's count. The ringside guy's count definitely reached the count of ten when Douglass was still on the ground. I believe if Tyson was at his best he would've Prob scored a ko late, Douglass fought the fight of a lifetime, a better version of Mike would not have let him off the hook.
