Official "This Day In History" thread

[ewmayer]

11 February, 1990, Tokyo, Japan: In one of the greatest upsets in boxing history, journeyman heavyweight contender James "Buster" Douglas KOd the undefeated and considered-unstoppable undispusted HW champion, Mike Tyson. Douglas, a 42-1 underdog (and you probably could have gotten closer to 100-1 on him winning by KO), dedicated the fight to his late mother, who had died several weeks before. Tyson, who had beaten most of his victims even before the opening bell by way of sheer intimidation, had suffered numerous distractions in the runup to the bout, including having ditched his longtime trainer, Kevin Rooney.

From the opening bell it was clear that Douglas was not afraid. Using a surprising amount of movement and using his superior reach (83" vs Tyson's 71") to pepper Tyson with snapping left jabs allowed him to keep the champ off-balance and unable to work his way inside effectively, as Douglas again used his octopus-like reach to tie him up whenever he closed the distance. Tyson did manage to land several bruising body shots, but at the same time, Douglas landed multiple notable power shots in form of right uppercuts, straight right and an occasional left hook. Wikipedia describes the middle rounds:

Douglas would still dominate the middle rounds although Tyson managed to land a few of his signature uppercuts. Tyson was wobbled by a chopping right during the fifth round. Soon, Tyson's left eye would begin to swell from Douglas' right jabs, preventing him from seeing his opponent's punches well.[13] Tyson's cornermen were caught unprepared; they hadn't brought an endswell or ice packs, usually standard equipment for a fight. Instead, they filled a rubber glove with ice water and held it on Tyson's eye between rounds. At one point Aaron Snowell, Tyson's primary cornerman caught the chain from the identification badge hanging from his neck between the iced glove and Tyson's eye. As Snowell moved, Tyson winced in pain as the chain dragged from one side of his injured eye to the other. Confusion and panic grew in his corner as the fight went on. Despite Tyson's inability to execute an effective fight plan, his corner continued to give him the same advice between rounds to move his head, jab his way inside and deliver a right hand. In the eighth round, a round Douglas dominated until the last few seconds, HBO's Larry Merchant noted "Douglas is asking of Tyson, some questions he hasn't been asked before...in the last few rounds of a fight you have to come back and win it."

In the closing seconds of round 8 Tyson put Douglas on the canvas with a signature uppercut; Douglas beat the count but looked a bit wobbly, but Tyson was denied a finishing attempt by the bell. The question was, would Douglas recover his wits during the 60-second break and be able to continue his aggressive fight strategy, or would he fold in the face of the expected Round 9 onslaught by the champ? Wikipedia again:

In the dramatic 9th round Tyson came out aggressively to end the fight and save his title, hoping that Douglas was still hurt from the 8th-round knockdown. Douglas was able to fight off Tyson's attack and was able to close Tyson's eye completely. Both men traded punches before Douglas connected on a four-punch combination that staggered Tyson back to the ropes. With Tyson hurt along the ropes, Douglas closed in and unleashed a vicious four-punch attack to try to knock Tyson out. Tyson tried to fight Douglas off but it was in vain. Douglas continued to land hard punches on Tyson as the round came to a close. Tyson withstood the punishment and barely survived the 9th round.

In the tenth round Tyson pushed forward to fight, but he was still seriously hurting from the accumulation of punishment given throughout the match. As Tyson walked forward, Douglas measured him with a few jabs before landing a devastating uppercut that snapped Tyson's head upward, stopping Tyson in his tracks. As Tyson began to reel back from the uppercut, Douglas immediately followed with four punches to the head, knocking Tyson down for the first time in his career. In a famous scene, Tyson fumbled for his mouthpiece on the canvas before sticking one end in his mouth with the other end hanging out. The champion attempted to make it back to his feet to continue fighting but referee Octavio Meyran counted him out. Buster Douglas thus became the new undisputed heavyweight champion and the fight became one of the biggest upsets in boxing history. The official scorecards through nine rounds were 87–86 for Tyson, 86–86 even, and 88–83 for Douglas.

The first 2 scorecards are ludicrous, and underscore how important it was for Douglas to win by KO. Wikipedia does not do the KO punch justice - after staggering Tyson with a right uppercut, Douglas landed several grazing punches before finishing the champ with a veritable sledgehammer of a left hook.

Sitting at ringside that night and watching with keen interest was Evander Holyfield, the then-#1 heavyweight contender, who was slated to face Tyson after the latter's "warm-up" bout against Douglas. Holyfield would not get his fight vs Tyson for some years, but that is another tale. :)

Douglas' reign as HW champ was not to prove long-lived - he showed up for his first title defense overweight and out of shape, and was KOed by Holyfield in the 3rd round, after which he announced his retirement from the sport. A brief an forgettable un-retirement followed a few years later. But with his feat this night, literally his finest hour, he earned himself a place in boxing lore.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

11 February, 1990, Tokyo, Japan: In one of the greatest upsets in boxing history...

Boxing is the only sport of which I know in which a laudable way of winning is to inflict brain damage on your opponent.

Consider what "winning by a KO" actually means.

[Uncwilly]

Originally Posted by xilman

Boxing is the only sport of which I know in which a laudable way of winning is to inflict brain damage on your opponent.

Various "Mixed Martial Arts" are the same. The subset of which you may consider to be boxing. American Football used to be ok with 'ringing someone's bell'.

[ewmayer]

A belated (1. Apr) happy-100th-birthday shout-out to Toshirô Mifune (1920–1997), who starred in more Akira Kurosawa films than any other actor save one. While re-perusing his IMDB bio and trivia, came across this little blurb featuring one of my favorite cartoons growing up:

In the Japanese animated series Speed Racer (1967), the hero was named Go Mifune as a tribute to him and the M on the hood of the Mach 5 and Speed Racer's helmet was in tribute to him.

Fun double-feature: Kurosawa/Mifune's Yojimbo (1961) and Sergio Leone's Clint Eastwood vehicle For a Fistful of Dollars (1964), which sets essentially the same story in the old west.

[Uncwilly]

Last week was Jack Webb's centennial too.

[kladner]

Mifune played engaging characters very well. His role in Seven Samurai comes to mind. Of course, that movie is mirrored in The Magnificent Seven.

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by kladner

Mifune played engaging characters very well. His role in Seven Samurai comes to mind. Of course, that movie is mirrored in The Magnificent Seven.

The late, great Takashi Shimura - a real-life descendant of the samurai warrior class who starred in the most Kurosawa films (the latter and Mifune had an ugly falling-out during the filming of Red Beard which ended their collaboration) - often plays the straight-man counterpart to Mifune's histrionics in fims in which both appear. Probably Shimura's best performance is in a Kurosawa film not co-starring Mifune, 1952's Ikiru, in which he plays a petty bureaucrat who is diagnosed with a terminal illness. In the west he is probably most often remembered as Dr. Yemane in 1954's Gojira/Godzilla, whose description of the monster is poorly dubbed into English, and has him describing the "phenonomon".

And there are several more such cinematic homages - Rashomon was remade into the western The Outrage, and contrariwise, Kurosawa's Ran is a retelling of King Lear. There's also The Hidden Fortress, several of which's plot elements and characters inspired analogous ones in (ugh - I shudder to print his name alongside Kurosawa's) George Lucas' Star Wars.

[kladner]

I've not seen nearly as much Kurosawa as I would like. In these confined times, we could probably stream such movies. We have plenty of bandwidth. It would help if we had replaced our TV before the lockdown.

[ewmayer]

Hallucinogenic effects of LSD discovered by Albert Hoffman:

“Last Friday, April 16, 1943, I was forced to interrupt my work in the laboratory in the middle of the afternoon and proceed home, being affected by a remarkable restlessness, combined with a slight dizziness. At home I lay down and sank into a not unpleasant, intoxicated-like condition characterized by an extremely stimulated imagination. In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed (I found the daylight to be unpleasantly glaring), I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors. After some two hours this condition faded away.”

Any microdosers - or for that matter, macrodosers - hereabouts? Speaking of macrodosers, Wikipedia has this to say on the death of British novelist/essayist Aldous Huxley, whose 1954 The Doors of Perception was based on his experiments with psychedelic drugs:

On his deathbed, unable to speak owing to advanced laryngeal cancer, Huxley made a written request to his wife Laura for “LSD, 100 µg, intramuscular.” According to her account of his death in This Timeless Moment, she obliged with an injection at 11:20 a.m. and a second dose an hour later; Huxley died aged 69, at 5:20 p.m. (Los Angeles time), on 22 November 1963.

Media coverage of Huxley’s death, along with that of fellow British author C. S. Lewis, was overshadowed by the assassination of American President John F. Kennedy on the same day.

[kladner]

Originally Posted by kladner

I've not seen nearly as much Kurosawa as I would like. In these confined times, we could probably stream such movies. We have plenty of bandwidth. It would help if we had replaced our TV before the lockdown.

One which I have seen is Throne of Blood, "Spider Web Castle" in Japanese, which transports Macbeth to feudal Japan. I found it incredibly moving.

EDIT: re Mifune: from Wikipedia: According to his daughter, Mifune turned down an offer from George Lucas to play either Darth Vader or Obi-Wan Kenobi.[11]
Holy shit, Batman! I would have favored him for Obi-Wan, just because the face is shown, and Vader's is not, except for the death scene.

[Xyzzy]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Any microdosers - or for that matter, macrodosers - hereabouts?

Legally we can't try, but we are interested:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/28/healt...ess/index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/27/healt...ess/index.html