Given what a monumental night it was in my own memory, I was curious to see how the 42-1 bout would be handled in “ Mike,” a new Hulu series dropping August 25. The ramshackle facility was known for its bar, which featured a big screen, an HBO subscription and a lax policy toward the sale of beer to Marquette University freshmen. I was with a college buddy inside the Central Park Athletic Club, a sports-and-arts venue built back when downtown Milwaukee was a thriving enterprise. For fight fans of a certain age, the match has always provided a “do you remember where you were” moment-which I do. The idea of “Iron Mike” being cut down in his world-beating prime by anyone, let alone a journeyman, was unfathomable at the time, 29 of Tyson’s victories hadn’t even gone past the fifth round.īuster laying out the “ baddest man on the planet” remains one of the biggest upsets in not only boxing but also sports history.
The sporting world, especially those watching in Catskill, the small town on the Hudson River where Tyson learned his trade, were shocked. Tyson went down at 1 minute, 23 seconds in the tenth round and did not get back up. The undefeated heavyweight champion, with a 37-0 record, Tyson began his fall from grace at the hands of underdog James “Buster” Douglas, a talented fighter who had been branded as “ lacking heart” in his career. It was early afternoon in the Tokyo Dome when boxer Mike Tyson, favored to win 42 to 1, was knocked out for the first time in his professional career. On February 11, 1990, the ground in Tokyo shook so violently that its reverberations-at least metaphorically-were felt in the small upstate town of Catskill, New York, some 6,650 miles away.
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