buster douglas father

", "I can still see it. . The undisputed world champion had demolished everyone in his path on his way to world domination. But when it got too out of control she would bring in my father and he would really lay the hammer down.". He glares at the mirror, begins to grunt and throw punches. The son of club fighter Bill "Dynamite" Douglas, he showed glimpses of promise but also displayed a lack of heart and discipline at other times. Douglas, on the other hand, was a heavyweight many had thought missed his opportunity for true glory after losing a bid for the vacant IBF heavyweight title in 1987. Just hit him. The father's body begins to sag or a grandchild is born or someone dies whom they both love. He would see a rope that dangled from a tree above a ravine and hear a voice inside him say the strangest thing: The championship of the world is on the line—will you swing across? "I accept Him," said Buster. Suddenly, Buster would find himself up off his hotel bed, winging and snorting, feeling the strength rush over him. When Douglas' mother heard of the fight with Tyson, she was concerned. in the face. "I'm in the snakepit of all snakepits," he mumbled, and stopped running. Buster closes the magazine. If he backed out of the Tyson fight or lost it, no one, not even his father, could shake his head. He wasn't going to study all night for a test. "You have to kill him to keep him down." Lula Pearl was Sarah's daughter. He would see Bill charging back into the locker room in 1970 after the Don Fullmer fight, his shiny body snorting and winging punches as if it didn't know the match was over, boxing one more round, two more rounds, three. Only his dad had lived these things. Tried having him as manager and trainer the first three years of his career, 1981 to '83, and then tried twice more having him as cotrainer with Uncle J.D. His aunts were telling him to forget this boxing nonsense, to get a job. So Buster got rid of the old man three times. Mike Tyson's defeat to Buster Douglas was a stunning moment in sports history. Uncle-J.D. Bill would return a few days later with a swollen, purpled head that made it hard to know whether he had won or lost, and Buster's mother, Lula Pearl, would mmm-mmm that same mmm-mmm, and the house would fill with a silence. "Like cool air," Buster would say, "being blown into my chest through a straw.". This man is why Buster always shrank away. Sweat trickles down the father's chin. It became so confusing, the road to manhood, so cobbled with contradictions. Douglas continued to fight journeyman fighters over the course of next year. ", One day J.D. Hug this man? Buster was the son of Bill "Dynamite" Douglas, a boxing contender in the 1970s who never made the jump to title-holder and retired with a record of 41-16-1. But no, this is the last straw—sidling up to King, consorting with the enemy—something has to be done. The morning of the fight, he spent another zillion yen and called Bill for the fourth time that week. "She passed, she never let on to it but her health was failing pretty bad," Douglas said. Buster Douglas Personal Life. The Jesse Ferguson fight, Atlantic City, 1985, was the second time Buster stepped into the ring without his father. In Buster's early years as a pro, because it was hard to find anyone big enough to spar with him, his dad often climbed into the ring. . It is late June 1990. Unbelievable!". Buster walks into the house in Columbus, Ohio, where he used to throw punches in front of the bathroom mirror. The films in his head didn't help; the projector had suddenly stopped working. "I've got a headache." "The first grandchild," remembers Uncle J.D., Sarah's son. Eight months later, the dream was over as Douglas lost his world title to Evander Holyfield, knocked out in the third round. She was just tired, her body was tired. For the first time in his life, he was free of expectation, almost off the hook of being Bill Douglas's son. It wouldn't be that easy. Which is going to duck, which is going to be a man? "I'm an athlete," he would insist. He called his dad and asked him to help him become a pro fighter. William "Dynamite" Douglas (21 March 1940 – 7 October 1999) was an American boxer. Say "I love you" to this man? That night, Lula went over to Buster's house and he tried to convince her he'd be fine and that it was Tyson who should be worried. The videotape of Buster's fight against Tyson ends. The mother of Lamar, the little boy Buster had fathered in high school, had suffered kidney failure and now needed Buster to take more responsibility for his son. after Buster had lost the decision. There was no more Bill in Buster's corner after the Tucker defeat, ever again. And brought him back three times. snarled Bill. On the mornings in Franklin Park when Buster thought he really wanted to be heavyweight champ of the world—when his legs began to pump and his arms ripped the air and the sweat in his eyes made all the birds and trees he liked to gaze at go away—he would feel something come over him. ', "She said, 'Well I don't want him to fight, my baby is in trouble.'". "Buster never could hit his daddy. A father who would take away his troubles. On fight night his dad appeared in the corner wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with a boxer's name. Buster couldn't bear it anymore. A week before the Tucker bout, as Buster skipped rope in front of the cameras, his dad grabbed another rope, jumped in beside his son and started skipping too. He had let little conflicts with his wife, Bertha, build and build; he had never seen his dad open up and talk to Lula Pearl. Yes, here was an odd thing, another facet to the riddle: If Buster got rid of the fat, became hard and hungry and heavy-weight champion—wouldn't that make Bill something less than his son? But Douglas came out firing, not giving Tyson a sniff. In his grief, it came to him: Here was the perfect excuse. But I didn't ask him, 'How do you feel?' The next time I saw her was at the funeral home.". Free because he finally knows the hardness and hunger are inside of him, not just his father. ", "Three solid shots right on Tyson's face! Why? But as the latest documentary in the ESPN 30 for 30 series, titled 42 to 1, reveals, Douglas did far more than just match it with the baddest man on the planet for a single round. ', "The family was divided. He whispered for God in the night. "My dad always wanted me to box because he saw a career in it for me.". In the bathtub one day in '77, just home from another war in Philly, Dynamite learned that a kid had beaten up Robert with his fists and then had grabbed a baseball bat and scared off 17-year-old Buster. ", Buster's brother Bill added: "We sat down at the dinner table. didn't hear. In a few weeks he will have the biggest fight of his career, against Philadelphia middleweight Bennie Briscoe, for a title shot against Carlos Monzón. For an instant he sees himself break into fragments, then there's a crash. He slugged it out with Tyson in the ninth before history was made in the 10th. The kid holds his fists low and bites his bottom lip, the way Ali does. "Fight that sissy. In the middle of it all, wringing her hands, her health deteriorating, was Lula Pearl, who loved her brother J.D. Rogers and two other friends who had recently turned to God walked into his room. Bill (Dynamite) Douglas is 50. It was the expectation fans and pundits had all come in with. He allowed me to do me and always love him for that," he said. That's what some people thought the new champ should do, carve his father right out of his life. "Don't open your traps again, or it's going to be bad.". If the fat stayed on the back of his neck, if he didn't run and spar like a lunatic, the way his father had before fights, and Buster still won—wouldn't that make him something more than his father? and I said, 'This kid said he was going to jump on me,'" Buster recalled.

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