31 years after Douglas' historic upset of Tyson, a story and some show and tell

Those who saw it won’t ever forget it. And if you weren’t watching live, it was the kind of event that you remember where you were and exactly what you were doing when you heard that 42-to-1 underdog James “Buster” Douglas, who wasn’t expected to last even a few rounds, had done the impossible: He knocked out the supposedly unbeatable Mike Tyson in the 10th round to win the undisputed heavyweight championship.

Decades later it remains the biggest upset in boxing history, a simply unfathomable result, and one of the biggest upsets in sports history. It took place 31 years ago Thursday — Feb. 11, 1990 — on an early afternoon in Tokyo in order to accommodate the live prime time telecast on HBO in the United States (where it was still Feb. 10).

Truth be told, I did not watch it live and was not happy about that. I was a sophomore in college and got quite ill a couple of days before the fight, which I had planned to watch at a friend’s apartment off campus as there was no HBO in the dorms. We were lucky there was even basic cable in the dorm lounge.

That Saturday night I was still under the weather and fell asleep early. When I woke up the next morning, my roommate said something like, “You're never going to believe what happened last night — Mike Tyson got knocked out.”

I did not believe him. I thought he was just messing me with me because he knew how ticked off I was about missing the fight. But he swore Douglas had pulled the historic upset, which I hadn’t even considered as a remote possibility. In 1990 the internet and smart phones didn’t exist to check for the result. I had no access to cable news or sports channels in my dorm room, where we got four channels. I insisted that my roommate prove to me that Douglas had won. I insisted that he go to the student union and buy the newspaper.

Just to shut me up he did and sure enough there was the story in black and white: Tyson had been KO’d. In those days HBO didn’t replay its fights. If you missed it live that was it. But this fight was so monumental HBO announced it would air a replay the following Saturday night. I read about HBO’s plans in USA Today’s TV sports column, which was written for so many years by Rudy Martzke, who would later be my colleague at the paper.

I made the roughly three-hour drive from college to my mom's house that weekend to watch the replay (and to do some laundry for free).

Years later, in 2005, a few days before Tyson had his last official fight, a sixth-round knockout loss to journeyman Kevin McBride, I spent time with Tyson for an extensive interview that covered a variety of topics. I asked him why there had never been a rematch with Douglas.

“That was a good fight,” Tyson said. “Buster fought great that night but he didn't fight me (again). He didn't want to fight. Things happen the way they are meant to be. I won the title again. I went to jail, came back and won the title. That was more spectacular than if I had regained it from Buster Douglas.”

On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the fight I wrote a piece in which I talked to a variety of people who were in Tokyo for the fight. One of them was longtime HBO Sports executive producer Rick Bernstein, who was in the production truck as an associate director on the telecast.

“I have worked more than 500 boxing telecasts in my HBO career and to this day I don’t recall any moment when those of us producing a fight were for one brief second caught up in this moment of disbelief,” Bernstein told me in that 2015 interview. “As producers, we’re taught to stay focused and not get caught up in the moment. For those of us who had covered Tyson for several years, this was a shock. I remember hearing over my headset and through the walls of our production unit people yelling something like, ‘Oh my god!’”

Ron Borges, then the boxing writer for the Boston Globe, with whom I covered many fights with over the years, was one of the few American media members to make the trip to Tokyo. He remembered the fight vividly when he spoke to me for that 2015 piece.

“I remember calling my desk around the fifth round to tell them, ‘Not sure how this will end, but right now Tyson is getting his ass kicked, so you may want to keep the front (page) available,’” Borges said. “Amazing week and amazing morning.”

Besides being such a massive upset it was also an outstanding fight that Tyson nearly pulled out with an eighth-round knockdown.

In a 2011 interview, Tyson told me he had watched the fight a few times over the years.

“That’s a good fight. I don't take it personal. I've watched it,” Tyson said in 2011. “I missed him with some bombs, but Buster was hurting me and he was moving pretty good. He did an awesome job. He did a great job. That was my bravest fight, one of my best fights. I took that beating like a man.”

I have watched the fight countless times and as a collector, of course, I had to have items related to the bout. I thought on the anniversary of such an unforgettable event I’d give you a look at some of the pieces in my boxing collection:

• There are three different site posters from the fight and over the years I have managed to acquire each of them. They are somewhat difficult to locate and when you can find them they are tough to get in nice shape. They also are not cheap. This is the main poster advertising the bout in my collection and it’s in very nice condition.

• Here are the other two site posters, which are also fairly scarce and a bit smaller than the main poster. The ones in my collection are in outstanding condition.

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• A good friend of mine used to own a sports card and memorabilia shop where we grew up in upstate New York. One day I was in the store in the early 1990s when he purchased a large collection of cards and memorabilia that included a few boxing items. He gave me a great deal on the two things I was interested in — programs from Tyson’s two title fights in Japan against Tony Tubbs and Douglas. They are both oversized, extremely colorful and mostly in Japanese. Here’s the Douglas program I got that day.

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• When I was in college my roommate and I were devoted readers of the short-lived but superb National Sports Daily. We had a huge pile of them by the end of the semester. The stack was so big we threw a towel over it and, voila, we had a small table. At the end of the school year we tossed them out but, of course, I’m a collector. Naturally, I saved several copies, including the first-ever issue (all three versions: the Michael Jordan cover, Patrick Ewing cover and Magic Johnson cover) and some Yankees and boxing-related issues, including the one trumpeting Douglas’ massive upset.

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• Tyson and Douglas have both appeared on a variety of cards and I have many in my collection. In 2019, Upper Deck included various Douglas cards in its multi-sport Goodwin Champions set, which also included Julio Cesar Chavez Sr. and Jack Johnson and Ryan Garcia’s rookie card. One of the Douglas cards was an autographed version, which is my favorite Douglas card.