James “Buster” Douglas was considered the huge underdog in his world championship fight against Mike Tyson. But then he caused one of the biggest sensations in boxing history.
The betting odds said it all. With a predicted chance of victory of only 1:42, James Douglas entered the boxing ring as the absolute underdog. Some casinos in Las Vegas even stopped taking bets altogether. The situation seemed too clear before the fight on February 11, 1990.
“Buster” Douglas, the nobody from Columbus, already had four defeats on his record. He was considered lazy in training and inconsistent – in other words, a grateful warm-up opponent.
His opponent: “Iron Mike” Tyson. The bulldozer from Brooklyn entered the ring as the heavyweight world champion of three associations.
Before the duel, Tyson was undefeated as a professional boxer, having ended 33 of his 37 fights early. Now the champion wanted to warm up—for mega-fights against other stars of the boxing world. But then, 36 years ago today, spectators at the Tokyo Dome witnessed one of the greatest sensations in sports history.
Mike Tyson was sensationally knocked out.
In the tenth round, Douglas sent Tyson, who was considered invincible, to the canvas. The world champion crawled across the ring floor.
He tried to put his mouthguard back in his mouth and get up. But referee Octavio Meyran had already counted Tyson out.
And Douglas threw his hands up in the air.
Douglas fought after his mother’s death
The new world champion burst into tears and explained into the microphone that his mother had given him the strength he needed. She had died of a stroke 23 days before the fight – at the age of only 47.
“I couldn’t even mourn her,” Douglas later said in an interview with Welt am Sonntag.
Shortly before his departure, the boxer’s wife announced that she was leaving him. Scarred by domestic violence, the then 29-year-old flew to Tokyo.
Douglas comes down with the flu shortly before the fight
In the US, the organizers assumed there would be little interest in what they considered a one-sided fight. Promoter Don King therefore sought a venue abroad and found it in Japan’s capital.
In Tokyo, everything revolved around the champion Tyson. “It bothered me when, at the press conference before the fight, over 300 reporters bombarded Tyson with questions and when it was my turn, only five were left,” said Douglas. Nevertheless, the challenger believed in his chance. Three days before the fight, Douglas caught the flu. But he didn’t think about canceling.
Tyson’s team decides not to use ice
Meanwhile, arrogance spread through Tyson’s camp. His team decided not to bring ice and cooling metal to the ring. This came back to haunt them. Douglas landed some hard hits. Tyson’s left eye swelled shut.
But the champion initially defied his limited vision. Tyson knocked Douglas down at the end of the eighth round. But after nine seconds, the underdog was back on his feet. The fight continued. The decision came in the tenth round. Years later, Douglas was still able to vividly describe the combination of punches. “First a right uppercut, then a right, left, right, and another left, and Mike Tyson was on the ground. When I saw him looking for his mouthguard, I knew I had hit him right. That was my night, the biggest sensation in boxing history, in sports in general, was perfect,” he told Welt am Sonntag.
Don King’s protest fails – Tyson goes downhill
But the fight had an aftermath. Don King lodged a protest. The man with the high-voltage hairstyle justified his appeal by saying that the referee had started counting too late when Douglas went down. After some back and forth, however, the associations rejected King’s complaint.
Tyson’s aura of invincibility was gone. From then on, it was all downhill for him. A year later, Tyson was convicted of raping beauty queen Desiree Washington. The boxer had to serve four years in prison. After his release, he quickly regained the WBC and WBA belts, but lost the latter in a fight against Evander Holyfield that had been planned for years. He never became world champion again.
However, Tyson provided an unforgettable moment in the rematch against Holyfield when he bit off a piece of his earlobe. This scandal led to a long suspension for Tyson.
Holyfield fights Douglas
Incidentally, Evander Holyfield also played a role in Douglas’s subsequent career. The two heavyweight boxers faced each other in Las Vegas on October 25, 1990. Douglas reportedly pocketed $24 million, but didn’t stand a chance.
The world champion was knocked out in the third round. After eight months, Douglas had already lost his title.
He fell into a life crisis and weighed 200 kilograms at one point. Douglas suffered a diabetic shock in 1994. The boxer fell into a coma for three days. “Everyone thought I was going to die,” said Douglas, now 65, about that moment. He survived and even returned to the boxing ring. Douglas fought more fights. He won victories. But none of his successes thrilled and shook the boxing world as much as the one 36 years ago in Tokyo.
