Unbeatable?

Well, going into February 11, 1990 we all thought he was. Some opponents had taken him to the final bell and claimed moral victories like "Bonecrusher" Smith had done, but in doing so he lost every round. "Iron" Mike Tyson was on a 6 fight Knockout streak. He had just defeated Carl Williams via vicious KO in the first round. Going into the James "Buster" Douglas fight Tyson looked pretty much like the answer to the Louis-Ali debate. Most boxing fans thought Tyson was gong to roll over Douglas early. What we couldn`t have known though was that we were going to see one of the best performances ever that night.

Buster had trained very hard due to the death of his mother and had dedicated the fight to her memory. Buster was on a 6 fight win streak against pretty good competition. He had just defeated Oliver McCall and Trevor Berbick the year before. Buster had shown his enormous talent many fights before, but more often then not he showed up out of shape and unmotivated. He had previously beaten Greg Page, who dropped Tyson in sparring before this fight, and a slew of other contenders. He had lost to Jesse Ferguson, Mike White, Tony Tucker, and David Bey, so it is understandable that if people thought the mighty David Bey could beat Buster then Iron Mike had more than decent chance. Tyson entered the ring as a 42-1 favorite.



When the fight started, Mike as usual, darted out to meet his opponent but he immediately had problems dealing with the 12 inch reach disadvantage. After a couple rounds it was obvious that Mike had stopped throwing combinations and had started loading up single shots to try to take out his opponent. Mike clearly wasn`t focused. At the end of the second round Mike was stunned by an uppercut. In the third Mike landed some nice shots in the body of Douglas, but by the fifth round Douglas could sense victory as he had Mike`s eye swollen. Then in the eighth Mike landed a sudden vicious shot that leveled Douglas.



In the moment, the referee made Mike go to a neutral corner and lost time when counting. Douglas was actually down for 13 seconds but like Floyd Patterson always said, "It isn`t how many times you get knocked down, its how many times you get up." Then in the tenth round Mike caught a devastating shot from Buster that sent him to the mat for the very first time in Mike`s career. This is the scene we have all seen many times; Mike looking for his mouthpiece, and then staggering to his knees and the fight being waived off.



What is odd to me is that most felt Mike was out of his prime at this point. He was 23 when he lost this fight. He fought one of his best fights afterwards against Razor Ruddock. He had also beat Henry Tillman and Alex Stewart in the first round. He still had plenty of time in his prime left.



Buster Douglas on the other hand lost badly to Evander Holyfield in his first defense. He showed up for the fight 15 pounds heavier then when he fought Tyson. After the Holyfield fight Buster was done as a player in the division. When remembering this fight you only need to remember Bert Sugar`s reaction to it, "Buster had no business whatsoever beating Mike Tyson, none whatsoever."

Article By: Brad Smith