If his mother's passing was not enough, Douglas had also split from his wife. "My manager called me and asked if I still wanted to fight," recalls Douglas. She had told friends her son was in a good place mentally to cause an upset. Lula Pearl was the first person to instruct her son to stand up to childhood bullies. In the build-up, punters in Las Vegas placed bets on Tyson of $93,000 to win $3,000 and $54,000 to win $2,000.ĭouglas' mother had died 23 days before the showdown. Tyson was good friends with Donald Trump at the timeĭouglas was 42-1 in a two-horse race. "Opponents would look like they were walking to the gallows," adds Costello. His previous world-title defence had lasted 96 seconds. Now he brought fear to others and, as the undisputed heavyweight champion, with 37 wins and no defeats, had most men beaten before the sound of the opening bell. Tyson, then 23, had shaken off the kind of fear that saw him cry before teenage bouts. Their back pages would soon be bursting with upset and scandal fed back from Japan's Tokyo Dome, where the fight took place at 9am local time. The front pages of newspapers on 11 February 1990 were occupied by Nelson Mandela's imminent release from prison in South Africa. Back then it was a case of how do you go away and prove it," recalls BBC Sport boxing correspondent Mike Costello. "I had a call the next day from someone who told me the result. As a result, the stunning upset was largely unseen. In the UK, Tyson's previous title fights had been shown on terrestrial television but the Douglas bout was only available via Sky, which had begun broadcasting a year earlier and then reached relatively small numbers. Listen: 5 Live Boxing with Costello & Bunce - Tyson v Douglas: the biggest upset ever?.Thirty years have passed since the unthinkable occurred. "When I saw him go down, it felt like somebody lied," the lyrics read. It was a day where millions of dollars disappeared for those with skin in the game.ĭecades later, The Killers wrote a song about the chaos. It was a day where desperate corner men made icepacks out of rubber gloves, or condoms, depending on who you believe. World Boxing Council President Jose Sulaiman and Don King both said Monday night that they recongnize Buster Douglas as heavyweight champion.It was a day shaped by turmoil. However, before he did, Olivares was up at the count of nine when he had been down for 11.85 seconds.Īnd, when he was finally counted out, he was really out- 14.3 seconds on the floor. 23, 1974-Alexis Arguello won the featherweight championship by knocking out Ruben Olivares in the 13th round. He had been down, though, for 10.1 seconds. But he prolonged the ending by getting up at an eight count. 18, 1970-Bob Foster was eventually knocked out by heavyweight champion Joe Frazier. Then, when he was counted out in the fifth round, he had been on the floor for more than 11 seconds. Johansson beat the count on the first knockdown, but he was actually down for 10.3 seconds. However, it took him longer to knock out Johansson than it should have. June 20, 1960-After being knocked out by Ingemar Johansson in their first fight, Floyd Patterson avenged the defeat in the rematch. Fullmer was really out, on the canvas for 11.8 seconds. May 1, 1957-Sugar Ray Robinson regained the middleweight title for the fourth time by knocking out Gene Fullmer in the fifth round. He should have been, since he had been down for 11.8 seconds. June 10, 1948-In the third Tony Zale-Rocky Graziano fight, Graziano was counted out in the third round. Oh, well, he got knocked out anyway in the second round. 27, 1950-Sugar Ray Robinson deposited one Jean Spock on the canvas, but Spock beat the count even though he was down for 10.62 seconds. The count was 10, but Conn was on the floor for 12.4 seconds. June 18, 1941-Heavyweight champion Joe Louis knocked out Billy Conn in the 13th round in a memorable bout. So Tyson, of all people, should be aware that the time his opponents spend on the floor is not synchronized with the actual count. NBC put a clock on Tyson and found he was down almost exactly as long as Douglas was in the eighth. 10, 1990-In his loss to Douglas, Tyson, in the 10th, got up at the count of nine but was still counted out because he was in no condition to continue. The count was 10, but Berbick had been reclining for 14 seconds.įeb. 22, 1986-Tyson won the WBC heavyweight title with a second-round knockout victory over Trevor Berbick in Las Vegas. But he got a reprieve earlier when he was up at the nine count, when he had actually been down for 11.7 seconds. 6, 1986-Alfonso Ratliff was knocked out in two rounds by Tyson. He had been out for some time, say 13.3 seconds. March 10, 1986-Steve Zouski was predictably counted out in the third round.
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