And Buster and his wife, Bertha, had temporarily separated.Īnd yet, he made good on that promise to his mom. Along with that, there was enough of a rift between Buster and his dad that Billy didn’t make the trip to Tokyo. Two days later, 47-year-old Lula died from a stroke. I’m not gonna back down.’ And she went back and told everybody ‘Buster’s gonna kick his butt.’ ” Douglas was a 42 to 1 underdog and Ross Culver, the sports book manager at the Mirage, said the fight reminded him of “Secretariat running against a Clydesdale.”Ī few weeks before the fight, Douglas said his mom showed up at his house: “A lot of people had been telling her, ‘Ooooh Lula, my goodness, what has Buster got himself into?’ I told her, ‘Look, I’m not worried about this guy. sites wanted what they thought would be another Tyson romp, so the bout was moved to Tokyo. Instead he won six bouts in a row and Don King signed him to fight the menacing Tyson, who was 37-0 and had just dismantled Carl “The Truth” Williams in 93 seconds. “After that I was kind of written off,” he said. The bout was stopped in the 10th and after that there were whispers about his desire. And they didn’t think I had that intensity to be like Bill Douglas.”īut blessed with size and athletic talent, Buster won 23 of his first 27 bouts and got a 1987 title fight with Tony Tucker, whom he was beating decisively until he suddenly began to fade. They used to call me Butterbean before I became Buster.
“My aunts were telling my mom, ‘Lula, I don’t know,’ ” he said with a smile. After all, the only boxer they knew was Buster’s dad, Billy “Dynamite” Douglas, a give-no-quarter middleweight contender of the 1960s, and they knew the son was nothing like the old man. When he gave up a promising hoops career for fisticuffs - he had led Linden McKinley to the state prep crown and then starred at national junior college power Coffeyville Community College in Kansas before Sinclair - his mother’s sisters wondered if the new love affair would fade as well. “But then I moved back to Columbus, got into boxing, and we drifted apart. “I fell in love down there and I was crazy about her,” he smiled. Thinking back on those long past days, Douglas fondly recalled Tartan Pride coach Kevin ONeill and especially remembered a girl from Prichard, Ala., he met at Sinclair. Against the backdrop of a boxing art show, the former champ not only will talk about his fight career, but his days as the 21-points-and-10-rebounds-a-game MVP of the 1979-80 Sinclair Community College basketball team.
BUSTER DOUGLAS WIFE FREE
As part of the five-week Punchers & Painters celebration going on in downtown Dayton, the Color of Energy Gallery will host a free “Evening with Buster Douglas” on Friday from 7 to 9 p.m. With a shrug and a smile he added: “He was inducted in the hall of fame last month, but they didn’t bring me out there like they usually do. We just talked for a minute and that was it really.” “I told him I liked those movies he had done. “He walked over to me and hugged me and it was cool,” Douglas said. 11, 1990 title fight ended with the dazed Tyson crawling on the canvas, his mouthpiece hanging from his lips.Īt the Grand Victoria, Douglas was eating when Tyson came up. The two men had not spoken since their Feb. Tyson was brought in to do a meet-and-greet. He was there because Smith was fighting on a boxing show. Love ya!”īut the affection wasn’t quite the same when Douglas made another reconnection last month at the Grand Victoria casino in Rising Sun, Ind. “Ya buddy,” Johnson said quietly as Douglas told him he’d be a couple of minutes late.
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