Was the alleged Tyson/Douglas upset a mass hallucination?

Discussion in 'Classic Boxing Forum' started by cross_trainer, Feb 27, 2022.


  1. cross_trainer

    cross_trainer Liston was good, but no "Tire Iron" Jones Full Member

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    "Common knowledge" says that Buster Douglas scored a wildly improbable 42-1 odds upset over Mike Tyson. This post will explore an alternative theory: that the Tyson/Douglas fight was a mass hallucination.

    Consider for a moment that the consensus theory (that a fight actually happened) is full of holes you could drive a truck through. Tyson was the Baddest Man on the Planet. He was invincible. (The internet even thinks he could beat Bruce Lee, which is no mean feat.) If you doubt Mike's abilities, you can look him up yourself on YouTube and start clicking through videos of his early knockouts. Crank up the volume on the 3 rap songs that they all seem to loop for maximum awe.

    Now look at Buster Douglas. Remember how he somehow managed to get a fight for the unified title with Holyfield? It was a massacre. If Holyfield wasn't ashamed of allowing such a poorly prepared and unmotivated fighter to contest the title...well, he should have been.

    Like the fanatics they are, proponents of the "real fight" theory will trot out the same tired video of Buster Douglas KO'ing Tyson that have been debunked over and over again. Anybody can fake a video these days. Notice anything about that video? The ref in it gets the count wrong. Whoever whipped that video up in his basement knew so little about boxing that he made a professional ref mess up the count.

    Quite simply, there's no way Tyson would lose to Douglas. And the odds confirm it.

    Okay, I know what you're thinking. True: mass hallucinations have never been documented. But instances of mass hysteria are more common. Look at the Dancing Plague of 1518, where people all over Europe started contagiously dancing. Or the Hammersmith Ghost and Spring-Heeled Jack hysterias in the 19th century, when numerous people reported being accosted by supernatural monsters. It's a common phenomenon.

    If hundreds of British people from the era of Sherlock Holmes can convince themselves that ghosts attacked them, then is it really so implausible that everyone imagined the Tyson/Douglas fight?

    This was a Tyson still at his physical peak. Do you really think the GOAT heavyweight in his early 20s was already past his prime? Because that's how Tyson supposedly looked against Douglas. People have to tie themselves in knots to argue that Tyson was somehow past his best against Douglas, when the reality is much simpler: the fight never happened.

    Nothing about Tokyo adds up. Even if you leave aside the wild improbability of losing to a 42-1 underdog, there's no way a young, undisputed champion would pass out of his prime in his 20s.

    It's time to put the myth of Tyson/Douglas to bed. Tyson didn't lose the title to some journeyman named Douglas. (A journeyman, incidentally, who suspiciously disappeared from the boxing rankings almost immediately, unlike every other great heavyweight of the 90s.) Like "Harry Greb," Tokyo Douglas is a phantom. A mirage.

    There was no fight. The myth of Tokyo has to end.
     
    Last edited: Feb 27, 2022
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  2. mr. magoo

    mr. magoo VIP Member Full Member

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    Love you as a poster and a person my friend.. but I have no answer to this.
     
  3. salsanchezfan

    salsanchezfan Obsessed with Boxing Full Member

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    I've never believed in Tokyo itself anyway, so I'm on board so far.
     
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  4. cross_trainer

    cross_trainer Liston was good, but no "Tire Iron" Jones Full Member

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    :eek:

    That's a good point I hadn't even considered. Tokyo does appear in a couple Godzilla movies, but its architecture looks suspiciously fake in those.
     
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  5. salsanchezfan

    salsanchezfan Obsessed with Boxing Full Member

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    I mean, how could a fight happen in a place that doesn't exist? Except perhaps as a series of cardboard cutouts on a soundstage.

    Note too, how eerily silent the crowd was during the fight.

    Or should I say..........nonexistent fight.
     
  6. cross_trainer

    cross_trainer Liston was good, but no "Tire Iron" Jones Full Member

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    I feel so silly now. It should've been obvious when they said the fight happened in a city from Godzilla movies.

    What's next? Lewis/Klitschko in Shangri-La? Dempsey/Tunney in Atlantis?

    Just goes to show that even the most skeptical among us aren't immune from getting taken in.
     
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  7. salsanchezfan

    salsanchezfan Obsessed with Boxing Full Member

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    Don't feel bad. I once met a guy who tried to tell me he was from Jacksonville.
     
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  8. Rakesh

    Rakesh Well-Known Member Full Member

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    My friend, please take your medications before posting.
     
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  9. djanders

    djanders Boxing Addict Full Member

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    This certainly would explain a lot.

    Next we need to take a hard look at Braddock over Baer. (Madison Square Garden Bowl, Long Island City, Queens? Bowls are round, not square. This sounds like a place under the rule of Emperor Ming on the Planet Mongo.) And what is that crap that Leon Spinks beat Muhammad Ali? The guy was 6-0-1. Many Female Champions have better records than that! At the Hilton Hotel? Did they fight in one of the rooms? Was Paris the Ring Card Lady? The whole thing sounds made up to me.
     
  10. Entaowed

    Entaowed Boxing Addict banned Full Member

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    They are getting to the point where reality can be easily constructed & faked such as with video, so this clever idea is a real cautionary tale for what might happen later, with far more nefarious consequences politcally & to personal safety & freedom.
     
  11. Richard M Murrieta

    Richard M Murrieta Now Deceased 2/4/25 Full Member

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    Seems as though everything is supposed to be fake news these days, bottom line, Mike Tyson took Buster Douglas for granted, he partied all night with street walkers into the early morning hours leading up to the fight instead of following his training regiment that he always used before. Douglas entered the ring with A Have Nothing To Lose Mentality., he had two tragedies that did harm him emotionally heading into his most important professional bout of his career at that time. Buster went into the fight, and stuck to a fight plan, it was to keep Tyson at bay, then counter him as he charged in. I sat on my couch in my apartment watching the fight live on HBO that night. I do not do drugs, never have, never will and I do not buy fake news angle on any subject. That is a form of Brain Washing (Alvin Karpus taught Charles Manson that method when both were incarcerated) because of a refusal to accept reality and stuck in denial, It is similar to the story of The Emperor's New Clothes, I read it in Elementary School. I was an athlete in High School, you either win or you lose. I get it, your favorite fighter loses on live television, it is embarrassing, but he lost, do not live in denial, that is not mentally healthy. Learn to accept both outcomes. Be gracious in winning and in losing. It is like saying little green men assassinated JFK, Lol.
     
    Last edited: Feb 28, 2022
  12. Richard M Murrieta

    Richard M Murrieta Now Deceased 2/4/25 Full Member

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    The term fake news did not appeared until around 2020, that fight happened on Feb 11 1990.
     
  13. cross_trainer

    cross_trainer Liston was good, but no "Tire Iron" Jones Full Member

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    Or did it...?
     
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  14. Richard M Murrieta

    Richard M Murrieta Now Deceased 2/4/25 Full Member

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    I do not doubt myself, I do not fall for conspiracy theories, it is a bunch of hooey.
     
  15. Entaowed

    Entaowed Boxing Addict banned Full Member

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    I am saying that our perception of reality will be in grave danger soon, & that it is coincidentally prescient that way.
    The terms fake news started even before the 2016 election & was used throughout the term of the orange psychopath.
    It was a case of "The Big Lie"-repeating something often to make it plausible, & covering for his own literally & carefully documented lies-over 30,000 within 5 years.

    But even that was not what I was addressing.
    It is the technology to fabricate identity & events that before long threatens to be even beyond the ken of experts to distinguish from Reality.
     
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