It was 20 years ago today, Buster Douglas shocked the world ...

Why, SportsJournalists.com favorite Rick Reilly, of course:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1136000/index.htm

 

I was five at the time. My only recollection of this was that Mike Tyson was suppose to be the special guest ref at a WWF event a week or so later. IIRC, they got Buster Douglas to show up instead.

 

Yep, that's the column. I remember cracking up when Reilly referred to the ringside guy as, "Mr. Isotoner".

 

I've never been much of a boxing fan since the old Duran-Leonard days. But I recall watching TV in one room of my parent's old house and my dad, who also wasn't much of a boxing fan anymore, dropped by that room and said "Hey are you watching Tyson?" I said "No, why?" He replied "Tyson may be going down."
And then we both saw the stunning conclusion in awe.
Then the next day we stopped caring about boxing again.

 

Ouch.

 

As noted earlier, this was the rare Tyson fight that was on actual TV. But he was fighting Buster Douglas. Why would I stay home to watch that? So I went to a buddy's house to watch a movie (Heathers, I think, hahaha)

Deep into the movie, the house phone rings. He picks it up and hands it to me. "It's your Mom," he says.

I wonder if something's wrong.

"Dad says to put on HBO, right now." she says.

I knew what was happening and my buddy, whose parents didn't have HBO, changed the channel and we got the gist thru the fuzz. Can't say I regret my decision, b/c it was such a freakin long shot, but yeah, it would have been awesome to have actually watched it as it unfolded

Tyson fights were great fuckin theatre. I saw the first Holyfield fight in a bar after work. The place was going absolutely crazy as Holyfield unloaded on him. I mean, almost riot-like (in a good way, nobody was going to fight or anything) Fight ends and our publisher stumbles over to me and the sports guys, slurring how we should have held the presses and gotten the result in there. We laughed. Jackass. He's probably making eight figures somewhere now.

The second fight was the night of my sister's college graduation party. My parents and our aunt and a couple other older folks went to a restaurant around 9 or so to allow us kids to--you guessed it--watch a movie and have the run of the house. Dad comes home and says "Tyson bit Holyfield's ear off!"

Moral of the story: Never watch a movie when Mike Tyson is fighting.

 

I was also in a bar the night of the first Tyson/Holyfield fight.

I had graduated from college a year earlier, but my girlfriend and I went back to visit some friends. We're in the bar, and the DJ announces that they were taping the Tyson/Holyfield fight and would put it on the VCR as soon as the fight was done.

So we're waiting a while, wondering what's taking so long, because we're figuring Tyson was going to destroy Holyfield. Then the DJ announces that the fight is still going on. The bar is going nuts, even without the fight being shown.

Later, they bring the tape in. Everyone's watching and just going crazy, especially after Holyfield won. One of my favorite bar memories.

For the second fight, my sole memory is watching SportsCenter where they broke in to announce that Tyson bit off Holyfield's ear. Very bizzare. This also happened to me the night of the Bowe/Holyfield fight with the Fan Man.

 

I remember the Tyson/Holyfield ear fight being the same night Shaun Alexander, then a largely unknown redshirt freshman, rushed for 291 yards and three touchdowns against LSU. I was laying out the sports section that night, and Bama-LSU was a game of major local interest, though we didn't staff it.

Obviously, Alexander was my banner headline on the sports front. Then Tyson bit off Holyfield's ear. I remember reading the AP news alert out loud in amazement, and the desker sitting next to me thought I was making it up.

 

I chose better. I was in Baton Rouge that night.

 

I think you mixed up the fights. Didn't Holyfield-Tyson I happen in November and the sequel in May or June?

 

The ear bite was in the summer.