The Real Deal gets a real deal

October 25, 1990 – Evander Holyfield doesn’t get the big payday, but does get the belts, knocking out a listless Buster Douglas to take the unified title that eight months beforehand Douglas had taken from Mike Tyson.

After the big Tyson upset, Buster treated himself to many a peanut buster parfait and precious little training. He came into the Holyfield fight bloated and soft, weighing close to 250 pounds. Evander, who for the past year had been anticipating a stratospheric superfight with Tyson for the heavyweight crown, was instead faced with just the shell of the man who had knocked Iron Mike on his ass. It was easy work for the Real Deal, a third-round KO.

From there, the trajectories of the two careers parted mightily. Buster retired to a life of fried food and indolence, blowing up to 300 pounds and nearly dying in a diabetic coma before getting himself together and attempting a comeback. Evander meanwhile became arguably the most dominant heavyweight of the decade, giving us a slew of epic performances – the Foreman fight, the Bowe trilogy, both Tyson fights, and then his two bouts with Lennox Lewis, after which, if the world were a perfect place, his career would have ended.