BoxRec

After looking at Mike Tyson's reign during the late 1980's and him picking up the WBA, WBC, IBF titles, I was curious to know who held the WBO title. Of course the title became official in 1989 so the WBO was vacant and this Italian guy, Francesco Damiani http://boxrec.com/list_bouts.php?human_ ... &cat=boxer won it and defended once all while Tyson held the other 3 titles. So i searched everywhere to see if these two champions ever attempted to fight. Sounds like they did actually. This is an interesting article I found, check it out http://www.associatedcontent.com/articl ... tml?cat=49

I also found this mentioned of the two:

June 29, 1989 | From Times wire services
Unbeaten Italian heavyweight Francesco Damiani has been offered a $1.5-million purse to challenge world champion Mike Tyson, the fighter's manager, Umberto Branchini, said today. Branchini said the bid for a title fight with Tyson in the United States next fall came from Don King, the U.S. promoter who has been organizing Tyson's most recent title bouts. "We are going to negotiate the match, and possibly better terms for Francesco," Branchini said.

Same website http://articles.latimes.com/keyword/francesco-damiani mentioned Damiani having a possible fight between him and Foreman and sometime with Holyfield. This may not be news to some but i found this all to be very interesting

lol I wrote that associated content article
*prepares to have arse given the proverbial kicking*

The WBO title was not taken seriously for several more years. In fact for many years, the HBO announcers (Home Box Office) would not even mention the WBO on the air. They would later change their policy on that.

I don't think a Damiani-Tyson "unification fight" was ever really much of a possiblity. No one really cared about the WBO. It had about as muich presitge as the WBF or the IBO does now. It would have been difficult for Tyson to squeeze it in anyway. He had to make 3 mandatory defenses every year as it was.

Damiani was supposed to fight Holyfield after Tyson pulled out of the Tyson-Holyfield fight that was supposed to take place in 1991. However, Damiani also had an injury so Bert Cooper got the shot.

Tyson would have KO'd him early.

Crease wrote:Tyson would have KO'd him early.

I'd say it goes the same way as Carl Williams!

Ambling Alp wrote:The WBO title was not taken seriously for several more years. In fact for many years, the HBO announcers (Home Box Office) would not even mention the WBO on the air. They would later change their policy on that.

Yep, even as late as 1996, and even with such a famous titleholder as Riddick Bowe, HBO still referred to Bowe-Gonzalez as merely a "heavyweight contest".