![]() There was chaos and Douglas was still jabbing the untouchable Tyson closer to oblivion. Tyson’s chief trainer, Aaron Snowell, improvised and claimed he filled the fingers of a rubber glove with ice but the temporary gadget looks like a condom. In round five Tyson’s left eye started to swell and the paid cuts man in his corner, Detroit veteran Taylor Smith, never had the correct tool, a tiny strip of metal called an Enswell, to contain the mound. Douglas, make no mistake, had been treated like a sacrifice by all involved. The American commentators joked about a 90-second bout and then spent the next 10 rounds finding ways to reverse their lazy and cruel cynicism. Tyson was unbeaten in 37 fights, it was his 11th world title fight and Douglas had won 29 contests, but lost four including the Tucker fight, which was an ominous blueprint for his inevitable surrender. It was obvious early that Douglas was not going to fall over at the first sign of Tyson’s violence. Just over 40,000 were inside the Tokyo Dome for the opening bell of the fight. Monday 10 February 2020 12:10 GMT Comments Buster Douglas knocks out Mike Tyson in Tokyo (Rex Features) Nobody really cared about the heavyweight title fight in Tokyo that early morning. ![]() Nine days later Douglas left for Tokyo, his mother in the ground, his wife gone and the mother of his child in hospital. Despite being a bit on the slight side at one hour with commercials, the documentary does. She knew then, knew that he would be fine. ESPN’s latest 30 For 30, 42 to 1, aims to remind us of what many consider to be the greatest upset in the history of sports, Buster Douglas ’s defeat of Mike Tyson in Tokyo on Feb. She had seen Tyson, knew he was ferocious and she held her son’s gaze. She had looked into her son’s eyes and asked if he would be OK. But they had not sat with Buster when he held his mother Lula’s hand before she died on 18 January. It was a mismatch – some experts called it an insult. The Douglas stopover in Tokyo was overlooked, it was routine, a massacre waiting to happen and, long as the odds were about a Douglas win, it was claimed that just one casino in Las Vegas took a bet. In this installment of Playing for Something, Buster Douglas, as told to The Undefeated’s Kelley Evans, opens up about his mother and how she motivated him in his fight with Mike Tyson, who was heavyweight champion of the world and unbeaten in 37 fights.Oddsmakers in Las Vegas gave Douglas 42-1 odds of beating Tyson. Less than a month before the fight King and Tyson held a conference in Beverly Hills to announce a fight with Evander Holyfield, which would have been boxing’s most lucrative ever fight at that time. He was, in simple boxing terms, a fearless man and it still amazes me that not one member of Tyson’s gang had any notion of the danger the podgy challenger posed. He was considered guilty of lacking heart for his abject performance in a 1987 world title fight against Tony Tucker Douglas was a 40-1 outsider but he was filled with a troubling mixture of hate, righteousness and hunger. Douglas arrived in Tokyo having just split from his wife, the mother of his child had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and a few weeks before he touched down his beloved mother had died.
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