It was an aberration.ĭouglas would surrender the title meekly to Evander Holyfield eight months later and be remembered as a curiosity rather than a great champion – much as James J Braddock, the original 'Cinderella Man', would be remembered after beating Max Baer to win the title in 1936, then losing it to Joe Louis in his first defence two years later. In truth, then, this was not so much a classic upset as an accidental collision of two lives, two fighters with their own burdens, handling them in entirely different ways. But none matches for pathos the picture of his groping for his mouthguard on the canvas in the final seconds of his first reign, his eyes glazed, his powerful body electrocuted into baby-like clumsiness. Tyson has left us with many images: from terrifying to vulnerable.

And his self-loathing unravelled to expose the great lie as Douglas recovered from a withering uppercut and knockdown in the eighth to batter the champion into one of boxing's most ignominious falls, in rounds nine and 10. He was, as Mickey Duff once memorably remarked, the biggest and best bully on the planet. Tyson was told to believe he was the 'baddest man on the planet'. 'Iron Mike', as he was marketed, was there for the taking, sooner or later. Only two fights previously, Frank Bruno had rocked his head in the first round, only to fold in five. The psychological traumas of his childhood that had lain dormant for years now gathered again to drain his resolve. His wife had publicly humiliated him on national television then left him. His life had for some time been a rolling catastrophe. He was also wrestling with a perpetual fondness for indiscriminate sex, whisky and other stimulants. In the hours before the fight, on 11 February 1990, Tyson sat in his hotel room, watching martial arts on TV, listening to his flunkies, as he had done all his life. He was critically underdone, physically and mentally. What was not so apparent then but became clear in the tumult that followed was the fact that Mike was also suffering away from the ring. How did he lose to this likable, 29-year-old sacrificial lamb of a man? It was sport, again, providing a stage for heroism, which is why many fighters fight.īut Tyson was 37-0 with 33 stoppages. These were real tragedies – rather than the prospect of a sporting one in the ring – that inspired Douglas, a sensitive man unsuited to his profession, to give the very best he could on the biggest night of his life. Then, three weeks before the fight, his mother died from a heart attack.

While the bookies might have been underestimating the chances of the skilled if diffident heavyweight, Buster was still a locked-down underdog.īuster was busted, his wife had just left him, the people around him didn't think he had a prayer. Douglas hoped with all his heart he could win. and it seemed, plainly, to shock the hitherto invincible Tyson.ĭouglas said he always expected to win that's true only if you believe in hope as an expression of unshakeable conviction – which is a dubious premise. Tyson went on to win world titles against Frank Bruno and Bruce Seldon later in his career, but Douglas never challenged for a world title again.It shocked nearly everyone at the time: the fight writers, the lone Las Vegas bookmaker who'd made Douglas a 42-1 shot, the promoter Don King. Tyson never did get the chance to avenge his loss to Douglas, as the underdog went on to fight Holyfield in his next fight and lose his heavyweight belts. I was trying to tell him to get some sleep.' Brown then joked: 'Eventually he got some sleep ! Do not put that part in there please, he is going to kill me.' 'There must have been two dozen girls in the room with me and Mike, we partied. We partied like really, really, really hard. 'Me and Mike Tyson are friends to this day, but there was a time when we partied in Japan right before his fight with Buster Douglas. 'We used to do crazy sh**,' Brown said in an interview for the A and E documentary. Is Buster Douglas' KO of Mike Tyson the biggest upset in boxing history? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below Butterbean vs Jake Paul tale of the tape after 55-year-old’s fight call-out

Tyson v buster douglas