Imagine if you will, boxing being in such a decline, that the only way to bring back interest to the sport was to ‘create’ a contender out of thin air, make the world believe he actually could defeat the biggest name in boxing and it be based all on the concept of a match that happened almost a decade before in the amateurs.
Sounds like the film “The Great White Hype”, yes? In a lot of ways, the sports comedy was based on two concepts: the Holmes-Cooney bout and a bout that occurred in 1990 that is seldom brought up these days between the former undisputed Heavyweight champion of the world Mike Tyson and Henry Tillman.
The movie might also have been inspired by 1956 Olympic Gold Medalist Pete Rademacher who campaigned heavily for a match with then champion Floyd Patterson, saying he would knock out Patterson in his professional debut. The result of the ONLY champion versus amateur champion in boxing history was a 6th round knockout win for Patterson.
At the time Tyson was 37-1, just losing his title to Buster Douglas in Tokyo earlier that year, while Tillman was in boxing obscurity having a record of 20-4 losing to the likes of Evander Holyfield and Bert Cooper as a Cruiserweight, but fell off the radar as his Heavyweight move took a nose dive when he lost to Willie DeWitt.
But even then, the match was played to the hilt. Up until that time nobody but Douglas had beaten Mike Tyson, except for Tillman when both he and Tyson fought in the Olympic trials back in 1984, six years before. Many people, despite Tillman losing to rather lackluster opponents, thought he had a great chance at knocking Tyson off the radar and get a title shot at Buster Douglas.
The whole rationale was, would Tyson have the emotional makeup, the toughness, to take on, defeat, a man who beat him twice before? Some experts said “No” considering Tyson all but gave up and showed his vulnerability against the 42-1 underdog known as James Douglas.
On the night of June 16th, 1990 the world watched and saw the answer…
In 2:47 of the first round, Tyson landed a series of rights and lefts and Tillman was destroyed. The entire amateur background scenario of him beating Tyson and remotely standing a chance was a complete farce. It wouldn’t be until 1995, after a 3 year jail sentence, would Tyson face another ‘pretender’ in the name of Peter McNeeley who was also played up as being a ‘force to be reckoned with’ and it also didn’t hurt that the Boston native was white and everybody knows white Heavyweights are a big sell here in America.
It was eerily reminiscent of a match- up some years before, when Tyson fought Tyrell Biggs who was also an accomplished amateur who went to the Olympics. Tyson, remembering how he failed to compete in the games, showed up fierce and annihilated Biggs.
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when contenders are manufactured out of thin air
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HomicideHenry
- Heavyweight
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- Joined: 08 Sep 2005, 00:43
