Tyson - Douglas unification in 1987 if Buster beat Tucker

Tyson KO Douglas
The death of Douglas' mother three years later motivated him to get up at 3:30 am and stay up for concentrated/focused training.

 

I think Tyson would win at this stage Douglas said his father was in his training camp at this point causing alot of problems. I assume if Douglas would've beaten Tucker then his father wouldn't of left his training camp.

All in all Douglas seemed to have his best run of performances after the Tucker loss when his father left his camp with wins over McCall, Berbick, Williams. And then he totally peaked in the Tyson fight after his mum died giving him that extra motivation.

Overall I think Tyson would stop Douglas between 6-8 rounds with Douglas having a few good early rounds then Tyson catches up to him. But this time Douglas doesn't have that extra motivation like in Tokyo to dig deep and carry on.

 

Think it's pretty much consensus that everyone realizes Tyson would likely stop Buster pretty early

 

No chance Douglas survives on any other night except that one.

 

I don't think Douglas outboxed Tucker. The fight was really close, and Tucker did a good work with left hooks counters to the body that helped him make Douglas tired.

I would say Tyson would have won that fight. Poster Dynamicpuncher rightly underlined the fact that Douglas had a very good run after the Tucker defeat and that he peaked mentally with his mom death. I don't think a 1987 Douglas would have gotten up from the tremendous uppercut he took in 1990.

It's also worth noting that Tyson started to slack about his training at that time and wanted to retire (Jacobs had to beg him to return to training camp). So I'm not sure that he would have necessarily stopped Douglas.

 

Mickey Duff mentioned to Cus D’Amato Buster Douglas was stylistically all wrong for Mike Tyson so this was before Cus D’Amato passed away so that was probably prior to the Trevor Berbick bout?


Mike Katz the boxing journalist was interviewed in 1989 during the Mike Tyson Vs Frank Bruno build up and said he thought the boxer cable of beating Mike Tyson was Buster Douglas.

This was mentioned all before 1990 and Douglas’s mother passing away. I think if he wasn’t unfocused and lackadaisical Douglas would be able to meet the challenge and beat Tyson. The same with Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis they just weren’t ever intimidated by Tyson even as amateurs when they sparred him.

 

Mike would probably stop Douglas in 2 or 3 rounds.

 

Tyson's easy and quick victory over another can of tomato juice - that's what we would call it today. To be honest, Tyson, if he was in good shape with Alex Stewart, would also have won even against Tokyo Douglas

 

Cus D Amato died a year before Tyson fought Trevor Berbick for his first belt in November 1986. Tyson would have fought Buster when he fought Tucker which was in August 1987 because Buster would have been the IBF champ Tyson needed to unify with as part of that unification series they set up.