James “Buster” Douglas was considered the big underdog in his world championship fight against Mike Tyson. But then he caused one of the biggest upsets in boxing history.
The betting odds said it all. With an estimated 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 before the fight on February 11, 1990 seemed too clear.
“Buster” Douglas, the nobody from Columbus, already had four defeats in his fight record. He was considered lazy in training and inconsistent – in other words, a grateful 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, and he had ended 33 of his 37 fights prematurely. Now the champion wanted to warm up – for mega fights against other stars of the boxing world. But then, 35 years ago today, the spectators in the Tokyo Dome witnessed one of the greatest sensations in sports history.
Mike Tyson 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 push his gumshield back into 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 the death of his mother
The new world champion broke down in tears and explained at the microphone that his mother had given him the necessary strength. She had died of a stroke 23 days before the fight – at the age of only 47.
“I couldn’t even grieve for her,” Douglas later said in an interview with Welt am Sonntag.
Shortly before his departure, the boxer’s wife had announced that she was leaving him. Marked by personal tragedy, the then 29-year-old flew to Tokyo.
Douglas gets the flu shortly before the fight
In the US, the organizers assumed that there would be little interest in the supposedly one-sided fight. That’s why promoter Don King looked for a venue abroad and found it in the Japanese capital.
In Tokyo, everything revolved around the champion, Tyson. “It bothered me when at the press conference before the fight, over 300 reporters asked Tyson a million questions and when it was my turn, only five were left sitting,” 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 entourage refrained from using ice
Meanwhile, arrogance was spreading in the Tyson camp. His entourage refrained from taking ice and cooling metal to the ring. This backfired. Douglas landed hard hits. Tyson’s left eye swelled shut.
But the champion initially defied the limited vision. Tyson knocked Douglas down at the end of the eighth round. But after nine seconds, the underdog was back up. The fight went on.
The decision came in round ten. Douglas was still able to vividly describe the combination of punches years later.
“First a right uppercut, then a right, left, right and another left, and Mike Tyson was on the floor. When I saw him looking for his mouth guard, 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 – and Tyson goes downhill
But the fight had further repercussions. Don King lodged a protest. The man with the high-voltage hairstyle justified his objection by saying that the referee had started the count too late when Douglas had gone down. After some back and forth, however, the associations rejected King’s complaint.
Tyson’s aura of invincibility was gone. From then on, things went downhill for him. A year later, Tyson was convicted of raping beauty queen Desiree Washington. The boxer was sentenced to four years in prison.
After his release, he quickly regained the WBC and WBA belts, but lost the latter in a long-planned fight against Evander Holyfield. He never became world champion again.
But in the rematch against Holyfield, Tyson provided an unforgettable moment when he bit off part of Holyfield’s earlobe. This scandal led to a long suspension for Tyson.
Holyfield fights against 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 received $24 million, but had no chance.
The world champion was knocked out in the eighth round. So after eight months, Douglas had already lost his title again.
He plunged into a life crisis and weighed 200 kilograms at times. Douglas suffered a sugar shock in 1994. The boxer fell into a coma for three days. “Everyone thought I was dying,” said Douglas, now 64, about that moment.
He survived and even returned to the boxing ring. Douglas fought more matches and won, but none of his victories thrilled and shocked the boxing world as much as the one in Tokyo 35 years ago.
