Note:  Sorry for the hiatus.  I've been sick and am writing a book as well.  Don't worry, you didn't want my football picks anyway.  Super Bowl pick to come later this week. 

Twenty years ago today “stranger things have happened” was redefined.  Not since David slew Goliath had such an upset came to pass.  The event went off at 42-1 against our new David.  Think about that.  42 to 1.  That’s the same return that a bank would give you nowadays and at this point I’d say giving your money to the bank for a 2.5% return is still a bigger gamble.  And that’s because nobody could beat Mike Tyson.  Not only could nobody beat him, but also, nobody could even make a dent.  He won fights before he went into the ring.  He intimidated world champions the way a schoolyard bully took lunch money from a 5-year old.  Don’t believe me?  Ask Michael Spinks, or anyone of the 33 fighters Tyson had knocked out during his 37-0 start to his professional career.  You didn’t beat Mike Tyson but rather you just hoped you didn’t lose badly enough to spend a week in the hospital.  Better to take a decent shot, stay down, then have him come over and give you a kiss afterward.

 

Buster Douglas likely would have had the “take a shot then stay down” mentality.  This was a guy who, in a nip and tuck fight through nine rounds, gave up in the tenth.  And it’s for that reason that when the fight was announced that people either said, “who’s Buster Douglas?” or if they knew who he was said, “seriously, this guy has no chance; he must need the money.”  And that was probably true.  Buster was next to broke and on top of that, his wife had just left him. 

 

But with 23 days left until his big fight halfway around the world in Toyko, Japan, Buster Douglas’ life was turned upside down.  Buster Douglas had a best friend, a lifelong best friend.  The two talked every day and she was his rock in his rocky life.  23 days before his date with Tyson, that best friend died.  Unfortunately for Buster Douglas, she was not only his best friend, but she was his mother.  Losing his mother deeply affected Buster Douglas as it would anyone, especially someone with such a great relationship with his mother. 

 

Buster Douglas had never been a gym rat.  He had never really trained hard and while he loved boxing, he didn’t seem to love it enough to go the extra mile as other elite fighters have gone.  But 23 days before the Tyson fight that all changed.  The old Buster Douglas seemingly went to the grave with his mother.  The new Douglas emerged determined to fight in his mother’s honor and, maybe more importantly, determined to do whatever it took to make his late mother proud.

 

Mike Tyson, on the other hand, treated the fight as just another cake walk.  His training camp wasn’t anything special and hadn’t been for some time since his trainer D’Amato’s death a few years prior.  Tyson’s focus wasn’t there and it seemed as though he either believed his own hype or just spun out of control with the serpents around him trying to make their way off of Tyson’s work.  Mike Tyson was the bread winner for a hundred-person entourage.  That’s a lot of pressure for such a young, troubled man.

 

When fight night came, those who stayed up late enough to watch the mismatch halfway around the world were expecting another microwave minute fight.  After all, this was a Tyson fight, an event.  The intimidating champion who came out to the sound of chains, clad in plain black trunks, was in the building.  It wasn’t a fight as much as it was an execution.  Tyson was the closest thing to Maximus in The Gladiator that the sport had ever scene.  The crowd expected massacres and cheered them on when they transpired. 

 

People expected Buster Douglas to play his role, the Washington Generals to Tyson’s Harlem Globetrotters.  Walk in, touch gloves, go down for the count.  Only Buster Douglas didn’t get the memo.  Not only that, but he also didn’t get the memo that he was supposed to be intimidated by Tyson.  How could Tyson hurt him more than he hurt from the loss of his mother?  How could Tyson make Douglas cower when Douglas was fighting for his mother’s honor?  The answer?  He couldn’t, and it was evident from the start of the fight.  Buster Douglas was trading with Tyson, but not in the way others who seemed to be throwing prayers out in the past had done.  Douglas was using his size and reach to his advantage.  He was landing jabs, and he wasn’t backing up.  DOUGLAS was the one imposing his will on this fight.

 

And so it went for 8 rounds until Tyson finally landed a huge uppercut.  Douglas went down in a heap and most expected the fight to end.  But by some miracle, Douglas got up just in time (some say the count was long but Douglas clearly was just waiting as long as possible; he would have made it up anyway).  The round ended, but Tyson smelled blood in the water.  Tyson re-emerged like a bat out of hell, but Douglas refused to back down.  Instead, Douglas fought fire with fire.  He treated Tyson with the same respect that Tyson had shown other opponents.  And then, in the tenth round, the impossible happened.  Down went Tyson, for the count.  He took his mouthpiece up and gave up against a fighter who, for the first time in his career, fought with honor and pride.  Talking about his mother’s death to this day brings Buster to tears.  But he speaks proudly of what he accomplished that night in Tokyo.

 

A shocked world woke up the next day when it read or heard about its new champion but Buster Douglas spoke as if he had done just what he knew he was capable of.  It is amazing how people can find out what their true potential in life holds when it emerges in the sporting arena.  Buster Douglas lived up to his, if only for one night, and I guaranteed you it still brings a smile to his mother’s place while she watches down on him from above.