The Last Great Fight

Training Joined: Feb 09, 2010 Posts: 7 Location: england

hi, mark, newbie from england here, great to find this site, followed mike all his career, just finished reading joe layden's book,The Last Great Fight, about tyson v douglas and how the fight changed both fighters lives,anybody else read it? great read. Very Happy

Training Joined: Feb 09, 2010 Posts: 7 Location: england

tried to set up a poll with this message,but doesn't appear to have worked? My question was do you think douglas was knocked out by tyson? i say yes he definately was! Confused

Posted: Wed Feb 10, 2010 2:22 am

Fixed it for you Smile

Welcome to the site.

Training Joined: Feb 09, 2010 Posts: 7 Location: england

thanks for that,great website by the way, at last a chance to speak to real tyson fans who appreciate the best commodity that boxing has ever had,and probably ever will have,not to mention one of its greatest ever fighters and biggest personality's.
we have david haye over here, and i have high hopes for him,i reckon he will unify the titles once more,but there will never be another mike tyson. oh for those pay per view nights that brought exitement and expectation.
one thing i cant get my head round though is the lack of good heavyweights coming out of the usa, from a country that has produced so many greats for so long? It must be frustrating for you guys? Confused

Site Admin Joined: 1076200199 Posts: 540

Welcome!

Is this the book you read?

If so, how was it (i might get it aswell)? Does it contain (interesting) Tyson quotes (like the book Fire&Fear. The quotes-section can always use new additions)?
Which period does the book describe (only the period of the fights or also years before/after)?
How does the book handle the slow count issue (did they talk to the referee)?

World Champion Joined: Jan 08, 2006 Posts: 511

^^Looks like it has a lot of potential. Fantastic epic cover, almost brings a tear to my eye(Ok maybe not that haha but it was one the greatest heavyweight fights ever). Damnit if only he hit him with that uppercut a minute or two earlier in that round. No man except for Douglass has ever gotten back up from a Tyson knock down and went on to defeat him. Douglass was not only lucky he was given a longer time to recover with that long count, but the biggest luck was that the round was over so Tyson did not get a chance to finish him(And I believe this is a neglected fact because people are more into the whole long count thing). And again, Tyson is one of if not THE best finisher ever in boxing. No man has gotten back up from the canvas to beat him(Except for Douglass).

Btw guys, yesterday was the 20th aniversary of this fight. 20 years already.

Professional Joined: Jul 11, 2005 Posts: 168

Turk15 wrote:

Btw guys, yesterday was the 20th aniversary of this fight. 20 years already.

ESPN Classic replayed the fight last night. Always tough to sit through this fight. Like Mike said in his movie, it should've never have happened. I get furious every time I see a condom filled with ice (!) being applied to Mike's face. What incompetence! It really is a disgrace. But again, Mike only has himself to blame. Just looking at his face during the intros, you could tell his focus was a million miles away. Even Bob Sheridan, the announcer for the fight, commented after the intros that Mike looked bored. And he was. Unfortunately, he soon realized he had a fight on his hands. But, alas, it was too late.

This fight was my earliest memory of sports, one of my earliest memories period. I was 6 years old and we had a free trial of HBO that weekend. It really had a profound effect on my sports upbringing.

Training Joined: Feb 09, 2010 Posts: 7 Location: england

this is the book, thanks for posting the front cover.This is a MUST read for all tyson fans and is described by Allen Barra,sports columnist for the wall street journal as the best boxing book in the last 25 years, i was gutted to finish it, just wanted to carry on reading it forever! Covers both boxers careers before and after the fight, and is fascinating to say the least.lots of interviews and quotes from both camps and an interesting interview with the referee and his take on it, and how it effectively ended his career and reputation, which up to that point was pretty solid. funnily enough it also signaled the end of douglas' career as well, after quitting in the ring in his only title defense against holyfield, to then drift into obscurity, and mike is even quoted in the book as saying that effectively this is the night his career came to an end, his record up to that point was 37-0 built up in around four years, and over the next SIXTEEN years after that it was 13-6 due to his periods on inactivity! so when you look at it like that, i guess he really has a point. mike was getting a beating, but he still knocked douglas out,and even the ref admitted he made a mistake. Sad

Professional Joined: Jul 11, 2005 Posts: 168

stringm wrote:

. mike was getting a beating, but he still knocked douglas out,and even the ref admitted he made a mistake. Sad

Really, the ref said he messed up there? Interesting.

I watched the replay at least a dozen times last night. Look, Douglas clearly still had all faculties working when he was knocked down. Now...he's about halfway standing up at 9. It could've gone either way. It would've been a very controversial call, but it would've been Buster's fault for taking his time getting up. What if what if what if!

Jeremy Schapp has a column on ESPN today about 10 myths surrounding the fight. Myth No. 2 is that Mike was out of shape. Schapp argues that Mike trained too HARD for the fight. What?! Wrong!

Schapp knows better than this. To say Mike was in peak boxing shape going into that fight is laughable. I don't care if he weight in at 220, he was not ready to fight 10 rounds. It speaks to Mike's heart that he was able to take such a beating from Buster Douglas fighting the fight of his life, and was still this close to getting out of Tokyo with an 8th round KO.

Site Admin Joined: 1076200199 Posts: 540

Well, I might get this book today (on stringms recommendation Smile

).
I read a few Tyson books from this list a while ago so I thought about picking another up. The Douglas fight is still a key moment with a lot of mysteries and intrigues so that should be a good subject for my next Tyson read.

For other Tyson reading recommendations check out this Tyson recommended books thread!

BluesforTyson wrote:

Schapp knows better than this. To say Mike was in peak boxing shape going into that fight is laughable. I don't care if he weight in at 220, he was not ready to fight 10 rounds. It speaks to Mike's heart that he was able to take such a beating from Buster Douglas fighting the fight of his life, and was still this close to getting out of Tokyo with an 8th round KO.

That amazed me aswell. Douglas had a lot going for him (the recent death of his mother being his ultimate strength and rage-giver) and Tyson had a lot going against him (recent divorce, no real training, no real corner, no real dedication etc).
He was destined to lose that night,...yet he somehow came close to avoiding it and even winning it.

I remember reading an interview of Tyson where he was asked which fight was his proudest moment and he also mentioned the Douglas fight because he was beaten but still did not give up, stood up and kept going. If only I can find that quote again.

Training Joined: Feb 09, 2010 Posts: 7 Location: england

not sure if this quote isn't in the book tysonian, many thanks for the book link by the way, time to do some shopping!!
i agree douglas seemed to be in control during the count, but if it had been started four seconds earlier, maybe mike could have got off one more punch before the bell sounded to end the round? to see douglas quit against holyfield though, it puzzles me as to what motivated him to get up against tyson, maybe the 24 million he got for the holyfield fight seems to be the answer,maybe he was planning his retirement before he even stepped into the ring?, although reading the book,it seems his camp was in a worse state than tyson's was. the great pity in all this is that we never got to see a rematch, i have no doubt douglas would have got knocked out once and for all within four rounds. Cool

Site Admin Joined: 1076200199 Posts: 540

stringm wrote:

not sure if this quote isn't in the book tysonian, many thanks for the book link by the way, time to do some shopping!!

I recommend "Fire & Fear" by Jose Torres. It is really informative (especially about Tysons childhood and period with Cus), well written and will leave you wanting for more at the end.

Site Admin Joined: 1076200199 Posts: 540

So I purchased the book and I'm now three chapters in it.
Sofar my first impression is 'good and interesting'. As expected, this book concentrates on (the build-up to) the Tyson-Douglas fight (and not so much on giving a complete autobiography of the fighters).
It isn't as compelling as Fire & Fear yet, but that might come later on.

After the first chapter (which concentrated solely on the childhood of Douglas) I feared the content would be a 80% Douglas and 20% Tyson, but the second chapter (which concentrated on the childhood of Tyson) leveled it to 50%-50%. I also was positively surprised to read some words of Steve Lott, Kevin Rooney, Matt Baranski and Tom Patti. The writer obviously interviewed a lot of related persons.
Luckily the writer isn't anti-Tyson, he actually knows his stuff.

Here is an excerpt I liked:
"The fact is, from 1986, when he first became heavyweight champion, through 1990, when he lost the title to Buster Douglas, Mike Tyson was arguably the greatest heavyweight champion boxing has ever known. Hyperbolic? Not really, although the term 'greatest' is open for interpretation, and boxing fans and historians, like baseball fans and historians, are a particularly knowledgeable and feisty lot. Theirs is an arcane world, and they know it well and protect it with great vigor.
Here are the facts: For more than five years, from his very professional fight until the loss to Douglas, Tyson cut an unparalleled swath through the heavyweight division. His record going into the Douglas fight was 37-0, including nine successful title defenses (trailing only Louis, Ali and Larry Holmes); thirty-three of those victories came by knockout, many within the first few rounds, or even the first few minutes. On occasion, a bout would end mere seconds after the opening bell. By that point, Tyson has established himself as perhaps the best puncher in boxing history. Bus he wasn't a brawler. The casual observer was often fooled into thinking that Tyson was nothing more than a one-punch fighter, a knockout artist with bulging biceps and a penchant for throwing wild lethal uppercuts. In reality, for a time, anyways, he was much more than that.
Look at the young Tyson. Look at the hand speed, the punches coming with such alarming frequency that it almost seems as though the tape is on fast-forward. Often regarded (again, by the casual observer) as a bull in the ring, Tyson was actually a marvelous defensive fighter. How could he have been anything else? This was the style taught by the great trainer, Cus D'Amato, who took Tyson in when the kid was fourteen years old, who either forgave or overlooked his troubled past and violent, sometimes sociopathic tendencies, and concentrated instead on molding him into the greatest fighter the game had ever seen. Watch Tyson bobbing and waving, slipping three, four, five consecutive punches, the upper half of his body shifting wildly and unpredictably, like a human bobble-head doll. And then, finally, there is an opening, and Tyson pounces on it. We remember the knockout, the awful sight of a body spilling to the canvas. We forget the speed and athleticism...the schooling...that set it up. Tyson was a boxer, a deeply devoted student of the sport who spent endless hours reviewing films of the great ones, of Louis and Dempsey and Marciano.".

A quote by Kevin Rooney that will be a good addition to the quotes section:
''In my opinion, Mike was maybe fifty percent of what he should have been, fifty percent of what he was capable of being, That's how good he could have become. But he got caught up in all that *Censor* [p40, the last great fight]"
- Kevin Rooney about Tysons potential during the Spinks fight.

Training Joined: Feb 09, 2010 Posts: 7 Location: england

glad you like the book so far tysonian, it gets better, as you have probably already gathered, happy reading Very Happy

World Champion Joined: Apr 06, 2007 Posts: 288

Ive ordered it today ,