Douglas-Tyson 20 Years Later

Twenty years ago today, James “Buster” Douglas knocked out Mike Tyson at the Tokyo Dome for the world heavyweight championship.

For children of the ’80s, there’s never been an athlete who captured the imagination quite like “Kid Dynamite.” At just 20 years and four months, Tyson became history’s youngest heavyweight champion with a second-round knockout of Trevor Berbick in 1986. He won 26 of his first 28 fights by KO, including 16 in the first round. He brought a record 37-0 with 33 knockouts into the Douglas fight and was a 42-to-1 favorite.

But more so than any other sport, anything can happen on any given night in a boxing ring, a lesson made abundantly clear to billions around the globe on Feb. 11, 1990. Listen above to Colonel Bob Sheridan’s call of the knockout. I still get chills when I hear it. It was sublime, impossible moments like Douglas’ upset of Tyson that drove me toward sports.

Last week, I spoke with Buster about the upset for an interview that appears today on SI.com. I also caught up with veteran sportswriter Tim May, who covered Douglas-Tyson for the Columbus Dispatch and who was the only journalist to predict the upset in print.

And since you asked, here’s my list of the 20 greatest heavyweights of all-time.

1. Joe Louis
2. Muhammad Ali
3. Jack Johnson
4. Jack Dempsey
5. Rocky Marciano
6. George Foreman
7. Larry Holmes
8. Joe Frazier
9. Lennox Lewis
10. Gene Tunney
11. Evander Holyfield
12. Mike Tyson
13. Sonny Liston
14. Jim Jeffries
15. Riddick Bowe
16. James J. Corbett
17. Ezzard Charles
18. Vitali Klitschko
19. Floyd Patterson
20. Jersey Joe Walcott