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Today is the twentieth anniversary of the greatest upset in sports history, Buster Douglas’s knockout of the previously unbeaten Mike Tyson. It’s irrelevant to quote odds or the like, suffice to say even the most hard core adherents of pugilism could find no reason to think Iron Mike wouldn’t dispatch of the underwhelming Douglas. It was, also, a moment of personal shame. I didn’t watch the fight. As a fight zealot, I was known in the ‘hood for requesting the most obscure bouts from various locales. But I had a particular disdain for Douglas. I felt he was a quitter, and a coward, the rare combatant that I had little respect for. Further, I had developed a theory, as outlandish as it seems now, that the lazy, fat Douglas, noted for a porous defence and moments of complete inactivity, could be the first fighter at risk to be killed by Tyson. Douglas had a way of freezing and accepting punches when he wanted to quit (see the Tony Tucker debacle). Against the ferocious champ, I had an inkling the result could be complete devastation. So..I was sitting at a pub with my significant other and friends when I quietly slipped away at midnight to call the Roehampton Hotel - the resulting conversation resonates with me to this day. Some say heavyweight boxing never recovered (thus the name of Joseph Layton’s book on the night, “The Last Great Fight”) but that strikes me as overblown and myopic. Heavyweight boxing was killed by the allure of other professional sports and the rise of the drug cheats, beasts like the Klitschkos and Holyfield who derive their masculinity from a needle. The division is surely dead, withered on the vine and a symbol of the decay and immorality of modern culture. I look back on what Mike Tyson could have, should have been, and I’m filled with sadness and regret. Douglas, who hit 400 lbs and battled a diabetic coma, never won another fight of importance. It was one crazy night in Tokyo, one insane spasmodic episode when the realm of certainty was upended by the brazen intervention of a man mourning the recent loss of his mom. No upset since, in any sport, will ever convey the impact of Mike Tyson, the great, the unbeatable, discombobulated and incoherent on the mat, pawing on all fours for his mouthpiece, and for everything else left behind…