New champ samples the sweet life; once KO'd by problems, "Buster" Douglas is now on the rise - James Douglas

Ebony, June, 1990 by Douglas C. Lyons

New Champ Samples The Sweet Life

Five Weeks B.T. (Before Tyson):

James (Buster) Douglas is training for a fight few expect him to win. Sweating as he jogs, he goes unnoticed by the passing motorists who are more concerned about the Columbus, Ohio, rush hour than an obscure boxer's chances against an opponent who seems invincible--"Iron" Mike Tyson.

Five Weeks A.T. (After Tyson):

A stretch limousine carries Douglas to all local appearances in his hometown, Columbus, where he is now a bonafide hero. He can't go anywhere without being asked for an autograph. One woman, working out in the gym Douglas frequents, asked a bystander if he thought the fighter would mind signing her towel. To make things even sweeter, Douglas has a conditional two-fight deal worth $60 million. A T-shirt and apparel deal also looms, and there's talk of a "900" number.

On this particular day, Douglas is off to Linden McKinley High School, where over 1,000 students and guests have crammed into the auditorium to honor the school's most famous alumnus. The fighter has chosen his former high school as the site to receive his championship belts from the World Boxing Association and the World Boxing Council, and no one in the audience seems able to contain his or her excitement. "It's a great honor," Douglas tells the crowd. "It feels good. I mean, being a [McKinley] Panther, how could I fear any man?" The question brings the applauding crowd to its feet. Several students scream out to the champ, but they are soon drowned out by a thunderous refrain: "Buster! Buster! Buster!" Looking back later, Buster Douglas says: "It's like Elvis or Michael Jackson. "I'm the same old guy, but now I'm the champ."

Douglas became the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world by pulling off one of boxing's biggest upsets. He arrived in Tokyo in February--considered by many to be no more than a "tune-up" for the long-awaited Mike Tyson/Evander Holyfield fight--and knocked Tyson out in the 10th round of the fight. It was a heady experience for a 29-year-old athlete whose overall fight record--30 wins, 4 losses and 1 tie--often showed more promise than proficiency.

At times, the fighter's personal problems seemed more jarring than his punches. His wife of two years, Bertha, walked out on him last July. Separated but still married, Douglas began showing signs of a man burdened by a rocky marriage. He was arrested last fall for drunken driving. The fighter pleaded guilty and subsequently completed an alcohol abuse program. After beating Tyson, he appeared in New York for a television taping with his girlfriend, Sharon Banks.

Bertha Douglas has since returned and has traveled with her husband. The two are attempting reconciliation. "Throughout my career, there have been times when I may have lost a fight because I didn't prepare properly," he says. "Or the marital problems have overcome me to where I couldn't totally focus to prepare. Instead of getting up and running, I'd get up and argue. It all caught up with me."

There were other problems. First came the accidental death of his younger brother, Arthur, who bled to death in 1983 from a gunshot wound. Next his trainer and father; William Douglas, gave up on his son as a fighter after the younger Douglas lost a title fight to Tony Tucker in 1987. (Both men live in Columbus. They are not estranged, although William Douglas has little input into his son's career.)

The worst was yet to come: Lula Douglas, the boxer's mother and a constant source of encouragement and inspiration, suddenly died of a stroke about a month before the Tyson fight. As if that wasn't enough, the bereaved fighter soon learned that Doris Jefferson, the mother of his 12-year-old son Lamar, had been hospitalized for a life-threatening kidney ailment.

A devout Christian, Douglas credits is faith in God for pulling him through those rough times and for winning the heavyweight championship from Tyson. "It would have been easy to give up," he says. "My wife separating, my mother passing, all of these things. But, my faith in the Lord Jesus Christ helped me to see things. I turned all that around because [I felt] something big was about to happen."

THE oldest of four boys, young James Douglas was a small, scrappy kid who grew up in Columbus' predominantly Black Windsor Terrace neighborhood. He earned the nickname "Buster" because he was, in his own words, "a terror." By the age of 10, he was following in the athletic footsteps of his father, William (Dynamite) Douglas, a respected middleweight boxer. Like his father, Buster excelled in sports, playing Little League basketball, football and competing in a recreational boxing program.

Basketball became Douglas' primary sport. He played in high school, where he grew into a 6-foot-4-inch power forward and helped the McKinley Panthers team to win a state championship title in 1977. He continued to play basketball at Coffeyville Community College in Coffeyville, Kan., and Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio, before winning a basketball scholarship to Mercyhurst College in Erie, Pa. In 1981, however, his lack of interest in academics led to poor grades and a return home, where he joined his father's boxing group. He soon started boxing in the backwater "smoker clubs" (where the boxing ring was placed on a club's dance floor) for small purses and even less fanfare.