MIKE TYSON VS. BUSTER DOUGLAS PROFESSIONAL
MIKE TYSON VS. BUSTER DOUGLAS SERIES

Tyson, for his part, admitted to a different sort of unruliness. Snowell said he could be a difficult pupil, and would sometimes refuse to train when required.

With little self-control and a support system incapable of discouraging his impulses, Mike became even more unrestrained. In round eight it briefly appeared that Tyson would rescue his title. For Tyson, going into business with Don King was like signing his soul over to Mephistopheles, but Mike, unlike Faust, would see only the dark side of his deal with King. In their place were Don King and a young, inexperienced trainer named Aaron Snowell, who had never even had his own fighter before assuming control of the corner for the most feared athlete in the world. His marriage to talk show confessor Robin Givens was over, and he had split with longtime trainer Kevin Rooney and managers Jim Jacobs and Bill Cayton. He would later state that he hardly trained for the fight, perhaps to exculpate himself, but it was obvious that his personal life had gone to hell. If Buster Douglas was focused, fearless, and spurred on by the memory of his mother, Mike Tyson was undisciplined and sloppy.

Perhaps when confronted with the loss of a parent and the horror of mortality, a mere boxing match with Mike Tyson, who Douglas had already promised his mother he would defeat, wasn’t such a harrowing thought. But rather than deflate him, her death had a galvanizing effect Buster later said that after her passing his training became markedly more intense. The two were very close, and members of his camp were concerned Douglas would be too grief-stricken and discouraged to continue training. And absolutely no one thought he had a chance to defeat Tyson.īut unusual and highly emotional circumstances attended the challenger’s preparation for the biggest opportunity of his career, as three weeks before the fight Buster’s mother died.

MIKE TYSON VS. BUSTER DOUGLAS SERIES

When the fight was somewhat hastily stopped after Douglas absorbed a series of hard right hands in round ten, he exhibited less disappointment than a man who had just missed his bus. In a stupor-inducing bout, Douglas himself performed like someone who had just been roused from bed. His lone appearance on a large stage had been a shot at the IBF title against Tony Tucker. Douglas (right) defeats Greg Page by decision in 1986. He had already been stopped twice in his career, and had never shown the relentless will required to become a world champion.

His physical abilities were obvious: he was big, strong, and equipped with arms easily long enough to keep the shorter Tyson at bay.

MIKE TYSON VS. BUSTER DOUGLAS PROFESSIONAL

Their special gift was to bore audiences with their lethargy and introduce fans to new lows of disappointment.īuster’s life had been steeped in boxing since childhood as he’d been schooled in the ring by his father, a former professional middleweight. With four losses on his record, “Buster” typified the heavyweight contenders of the late 1980s, men such as Greg Page and Tony Tubbs: big, talented, but lacking discipline and drive. Mike Tyson signed for this match thinking the unheralded Douglas would be an easy mark before his pending superfight with Evander Holyfield.

Fought at nine in the morning in Tokyo, in front of a reserved Japanese crowd, one of boxing’s most startling dramas ended with an amazing knockout which forever changed the heavyweight division, but it was only the climax to a story whose development was equally fascinating. Lost in discussions of Douglas vs Tyson is its strange context. This didn’t happen, of course, since a powerful and precise combination in the tenth round snatched Tyson’s title away, and with it, his air of invincibility. In 1990, the undefeated Mike Tyson appeared indomitable and unstoppable, while Buster Douglas was merely a talented but underachieving contender for Mike to destroy on his way to a much bigger fight. Every serious fight fan is quite familiar with the narrative.

Mike tyson vs. buster douglas