On November 22, 1986; a 20-year-old Mike Tyson beat current champion Trevor Berbick in a ruthless bout to be crowned WBC heavyweight champion of the world.
The fight, coined ‘Judgement Day’, was held in Las Vegas where Tyson would show his superiority over the Canadian by finishing the fight in only two rounds – much to the delight of the home crowd.
Despite being 12 years younger than defending champion Berbick; Tyson was favourite to win the fight -even though it was his first challenge for the title.
Although ‘Iron Mike’ was only 20 at the time he was one of the most feared fighters in the division and the world. He already had 27 professional fights and wins under his belt, with 25 of those being knockouts.
Berbick tried to get into Tyson’s head straight away by wearing black shoes, red gloves, black trunks and low socks that had always been the American’s uniform. As the champion he got to choose what he’d like to wear for the bout. And the then 32-year-old plumped for Tyson’s look – with the only difference being that he chose to wear long socks. This didn’t faze Tyson as he gladly took the £5,000 fine to wear his usual attire without hesitation.
Straight from the starting bell it was clear Tyson was after the belt and nothing was going to stop him. He came out as the aggressor and was straight in Berbick’s face with his trademark powerful right hooks.
Berbick was already looking for any chance to rest and started to hold his left glove out and push Tyson away to give himself some space, but this didn’t last long.
Tyson kept on dominating Berbick with quick jabs and devastating hooks. Not only was he incredibly powerful and accurate with these punches but any punch Berbick threw at Tyson, he was quick to react and managed to dodge every attempt.
Berbick was looking tired early on and threw a lazy hook halfway into the round which Tyson ducked out the way of before landed a formidable left hook of his own.
Berbick was dazzled and held a sloppy guard which only met a lethal combination of hooks from the contender which sent him across the ring.
For the rest of round one Berbick was desperate to cling on to any hope he had of redeeming what looked like an already lost fight. He kept going into clinches and delivering body shots to Tyson which seemed to do nothing, but fuel the heavy-hitters determination to win.
Round one was over and the commentators were quick to critique Berbick’s performance.
‘You cannot fight against Tyson this way. It’s a poor game-plan. Berbick is not fighting anything like he usually does,’ was one summary.
Round two began and Tyson smelt blood.
He quickly came out of his corner throwing nothing but hooks. No jabs, no lay-up shots, just power punches with match-ending intention.
After persistent aggression early in the round from Tyson, Berbick fell after a 10-second onslaught of six powerful hooks all aimed and delivered to his head.
However, Berbick was only down for a matter of seconds before the bout continued.
When the fight resumed Berbick scrambled straight into a clinch hoping to see out the round, but Tyson manoeuvred his way to deliver a devastating punch to the liver that saw his opponent stutter back away from the clinch and present an opportunity to Tyson.
The contender threw one last hook before Berbick slumped over on to the canvas.
He tried to get up, but stumbled back on to the ropes.
He tried once more but only stood for a millisecond before he fell back down – convincing referee Mills Lane to stop the fight and award a deserved victory, and championship belt, to Tyson.
After the fight Berbick was never able to regain the success he once had as he never fought for the championship again – although he did enjoy a long career fighting up to 2000.
Meanwhile, Tyson retained his belt for years adding the WBA and IBF titles along the way as he dominated the dvision. Then on February 11, 1990 he suffered a shock defeat by Buster Douglas. The following year he was charged with rape and was found guilty of the charge in March 1992 he was sentenced to six years of imprisonment along with four years of probation.
Tyson was released in March 1995 after serving less than three years of the sentence and soon came back to boxing – making his comeback with a win over Peter McNeeley in August 1995. McNeeley was disqualified after his manager entered the ring.
During Tyson’s comeback he did manage to regain some of his previous titles. His first being against Frank Bruno in 1996 which he won by via a third-round knockout to claim back the WBC title.
Then later that year he would win the WBA title by flooring Bruce Seldon in the first round. However, his career was never quite the same after that as he lost high-profile titles fights to Evander Holyfield (twice) and Lennox Lewis.
He then retired in 2005, after losing to Kevin McBride, with a record of 50 wins – 44 via knockout – with only six losses to his name.
However, Tyson is making a comeback to boxing later this month in an eight-round exhibition.
He will face off against former rival Roy Jones Jr who once turned down a £33m fight opportunity to fight Tyson and called himself the ‘baddest man on the planet’.
Both fighters, who are in their fifties Tyson 54 and Jones 51, will face off in California on November 28.
