He wasn’t even in the fight at that point - he was sleeping. But when he reached for it, I knew he was hurt then.
If he would have been coherent, he would have just gotten up, let the referee get the mouthpiece and extend the count. I knew I had won, because when he reached for his mouthpiece, I knew he was incoherent. When Mike didn’t get up, I knew I had him. Then that 10th round came, when I dropped him at one minute and 22 seconds into the round. I dominated the ninth round and gave him a swollen left eye. The heartbreak that fuels Dodgers prospect Jared Walker.Most dominant athlete of 2018: Simone Biles.Doc Rivers: What I've learned in 20 seasons as an NBA head coach.He was showing me that he was still alive. I got caught because of that brief moment of reflection, when I stopped fighting. I hit the canvas like, ‘F-!’ When he knocked me down, I wanted to look at him, take a moment and say: ‘Come on, Mike. He caught me with one of those hooks, uppercuts. I was pissed because I got caught looking. I was angry and motivated - at the same time. I got caught standing square, standing right up in front of him. When I went down late in the eighth round, I knew exactly why it happened.
He wasn’t even in the fight at that point - he was sleeping.” Even with all of that, I still wasn’t getting any respect because Mike Tyson was just a god. Fighters who I figured would beat me, guys who lost their careers, I ended up beating and turning everything around to get a shot at the title. I fought killers to get this opportunity. I knew nobody gave me this opportunity I had earned it. Everyone was expecting a quick, 90-second knockout, but I’m well-educated in this game. I went into the fight with a lot of confidence, and I wanted to express that. I knew he was a warrior in the ring, but I looked beyond that. I looked beyond that figure in the ring, and I had to compare myself to the individual, so I wasn’t really impressed with all the success he was having. He said the fight would be like any other fight - something like, ‘I’m going to knock him out,’ or whatever. I remember a reporter asking him how he thought the fight would go.
The thing about Mike is he’s not a trash-talker. My biggest worry was something happening that would postpone or delay it - like Mike getting hurt in training. I had no doubt at any time during training. Make no mistake, I knew that if you weren’t bending steel or eating mercury, you had no chance against that man. In my mind, I was getting ready to be a nightmare to him. I was like, ‘Man, I’ve got so much s- pent up in me, this is your a–.’ I mean, really, I was just at that point to where I could give a hoot about the naysayers. It would have just been devastating, knowing that I was unable to continue because of her passing, but it just built my strength even more, in a sense.įighting Mike was a relief. She was really ill at that time - I didn’t know how ill, but she mustered enough strength to get in her car and drive over to my house and ask me a few questions to see where my head was at. 18, 1990, to check on me as I was preparing for the fight. She visited me the week before she died on Jan. 11, 1990.īut the person who motivated me was my mother. If you had to say, ‘This is how I want to be remembered, how I want people to know me, to look at me,’ it’s as a gentleman, a kind man who believes in himself, a humble guy who had an opportunity and took advantage of it.ĭouglas fought with a heavy heart on Feb. I was blessed with the opportunity and I conquered. 11, 1990, a day that marked my sporting life. She died three weeks before my fight against Mike Tyson on Feb. That’s how she was with me and my brothers. Ever since then, he never said anything else to me. The bully was like, ‘What?’ And I turned around and said, ‘Foul!’ And I was looking at him, fists all balled up, and he just gave me the ball. It was, like, the next day I went outside, and we were shooting basketball. At 10 or 11 years old, she made me go out there and face that bully, and when I came into the house crying, she jumped on me bad. My mother, Lula Pearl Douglas, was my motivator. My mother slammed me on the ground, put her knee in my chest, and said, ‘If you don’t get out there and fight that boy, you’re going to have to fight me.’
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