Biggest Upset In Sports History
We all know him and have heard of him countless times in different media and from different people. “Kid Dynamite,” “Iron Mike,” “The Baddest Man on the Planet.” The sheer presence of the look of ‘Iron’ Mike Tyson was a spectacle in the ’80s and even ‘90s. He was a man who managed to revive a bland and forgotten time in the Heavyweight division and even managed to accomplish things that still hold up to this day.
Mike Tyson was a feared man, yet with being feared comes a question of ego and dedication. Mike Tyson was 37-0 at the time of the Buster Douglas fight. People assumed Buster Douglas to be a tune-up fight for Evander “The Real Deal” Holyfield and had also never heard of Douglas. He was an up-and-coming journeyman fighter and beat some of Tyson's opponents. Weeks before the fight, Douglas's mother, Lula Pearl, suddenly passed away, and this would fuel him into training harder than any other bout to win in her memory. Even with all his dedication and effort, people still bet against him, with bets going as far as 42-1 and not taking any bets otherwise.
While Buster Douglas spent his days in the gym and training, Mike was off in Japan, living the nightlife and barely even lacing a glove up before the fight. A cocaine fiasco and womanizer life led him to barely train for the bout, believing that he would run through his opponent like nothing. Fight night came, and everyone looked amped up to fight. And Tyson looked like he wanted to get over it with quickly and swiftly. The beginning of the fight reflected the importance of training, with Buster Douglas moving swiftly across the ring while picking shots off at Tyson.
Meanwhile, Tyson looked slow and uncoordinated, which didn’t help because he let the early rounds go away to Buster. Douglas was also throwing more punches and landing more punches than Tyson, which explains why he landed 128 out of 243 jabs. Tyson may have been landing more power punches, but this didn’t stop Douglas from stealing the early rounds.
During the middle rounds, Tyson was slightly up on a few judges' scorecards, but Buster’s jab had started to take effect on him. His left eye had started to swell up, and the worst part was his team forgot to bring an enswell, so they had to resort to using an inflated latex balloon with cold water.
After struggling to stay in the fight, a desperate Tyson landed an uppercut on the chin of Douglas, which resulted in a knockdown and had Douglas on the ground. Tyson recalls it as a robbery since he counted Douglas being down for about 13 seconds, but the ref never saw that. After the count was supposedly almost over, Douglas rose up and was back in the fight, and the 8th round was over. And for the 9th round, Tyson tried to knockout Douglas in a desperate last-ditch effort but failed and ended up taking a lot of his energy. In the 10th round, James ‘Buster’ Douglas would land a series of punches, with the last 3 being hooks to his head. 1..2..3. That’s what Tyson heard in his ears as he stumbled on the canvas while trying to find his mouthpiece and recuperate. Unfortunately, it wasn’t in his favor to win, and it was counted out right as he got up.