33 years ago today

[The Dog 44017]

This happened:

 

Edited February 12, 2023 by The Dog

[Rimbo 25908]

We were at some restaurant on the Riverwalk in SA. Weren't even paying attention until someone shouted "He knocked him down!" THEN we started paying attention. The next time Tyson went down, he stayed down.

Whole place went nuts.

It's a moment like the Challenger disaster, or 9/11, or 4th and 5. One of those unthinkable moments that you remember where you were when it happened.

[shnsajax 3591]

At home watching, best friend called me and one of the greatest sports moments of my early teen live. It’s was like watching the titanic sink in real time, Tyson was bigger than any sports figure I had ever encountered at that time.

[Hate 20106]

I remember seeing the scroll at the bottom of the screen on ESPN and CNN Sports.  All we saw at first was still photos.  It was a day or two before there was video available.  It was a crazy time to be alive.

[Hook1997 5351]

Booze, coke, hookers and no sleep is not the way to prepare for a fight.  

[Rimbo 25908]

 

[Rimbo 25908]

17 hours ago, Rimbo said:

We were at some restaurant on the Riverwalk in SA. Weren't even paying attention until someone shouted "He knocked him down!" THEN we started paying attention. The next time Tyson went down, he stayed down.

Whole place went nuts.

It's a moment like the Challenger disaster, or 9/11, or 4th and 5. One of those unthinkable moments that you remember where you were when it happened.

I clearly remember this not quite correctly, because Tyson was only knocked down once. 

[Dennis Taylor 18807]

I remember a group of us meeting at some friend's house off of Duval. Most of us went to some party somewhere while a few of them stayed there to hang out and watch the fight.  Later that night we went back to that house and those guys were telling us Tyson lost and we didn't believe them. They even commemorated the night by scrawling "TYSON FELL" on the label of the whiskey bottle they went through. 

[markstanco 12570]

On 2/11/2023 at 11:54 PM, Hook1997 said:

Booze, coke, hookers and no sleep is not the way to prepare for a fight.  

 

[tx 3 putt 76862]

On 2/11/2023 at 11:54 PM, Hook1997 said:

Booze, coke, hookers and no sleep is not the way to prepare for a fight.  

Maybe not in your book !

[ConferenceRoom 6141]

On 2/12/2023 at 2:01 PM, Rimbo said:

I clearly remember this not quite correctly, because Tyson was only knocked down once. 

You probably heard someone yell at Douglas getting knocked down. 

[Rimbo 25908]

4 hours ago, ConferenceRoom said:

You probably heard someone yell at Douglas getting knocked down. 

No, I just didn't remember it right. It was that Tyson fell that got our attention. Then we all payed attention... and then ten seconds later, the fight was over. 

This was a reasonably decent restaurant (I was in a tux; had just performed Prokofiev's 5th with the All State orchestra) and we were overhearing the bar area. Whole place went nuts.

It's really hard to imagine, if you weren't there, how unthinkable Tyson getting knocked out by anyone was. That it was Buster Douglas and not Holyfield was even more stunning. The Japanese were in silent shock; this was not supposed to happen. Tyson was advertised as no mortal man. It's not just the record, nearly all by knockout. It's that most of those fights never even made it to the third round.

For the US, well, we'd seen all the Rocky movies, so as amazing as it was, it wasn't beyond belief. We had fiction leading the way. But for Japan? It just couldn't happen. It wasn't supposed to happen. It wasn't possible. It wasn't what they'd paid to see. They paid to see god punish a sinner; this was heresy.