Tokyo Douglas KOd in round 8. Yes or no?

I have watched the fight many times. I saw nothing so egregious as to call the official result into question. On that day, James Douglas won.

 

Old Don King was quick to get in there and cry foul.
If I recall correctly, only the IBF stood true from calling it for Tyson.
The other alphabet s sides with King and claimed it should have been Tyson winning.
Ahhh the good old days.

 

I think the WBC and WBA did briefly withhold recognition of Douglas but there was a huge outcry and commissions around the world pressured the organizations into recognizing the outcome so it was quietly affirmed a few days later.

IIRC, Buster had to take Don King to court to be allowed to defend against Evander. He wanted nothing to do with King after the promoter tried to undermine his title win, which put the kibosh on any rematch (not that I’m sure King/Tyson ever really tried to make one after Holyfield beat Douglas).

 

I remember it like it was yesterday.
It had echo's of Dempsey V Tunney for us classic boxing fan s.
Not sure what Tyson truthly felt.

 

Without any offer of proof, my conspiracy theory is that somewhere along the way Don King noticed that most knockdown counts take longer than 10 stopwatch seconds and maybe even noted that Octavio Meyran’s count was slower than 10 seconds and tucked that away in his back pocket for a time when it might come into play and the result didn’t favor him.

His sway with the WBC in particular and WBA were such that he figured if he played that card at the right time, his buddies would uphold his protest and he could nullify a result and at least set up a rematch. And that might normally have been the case but this wasn’t some junior middleweight title fight where the general public wouldn’t know, much less care, and the backlash was huge and the extra pressure from the commissions (with whom he had to do business) made him abort his plan.

Like I said, I can’t prove it but I believe it’s possible. He sure pounced on it quickly whatever the case.

 

yes