Mike Tyson vs Carl Williams - Full Fight - 7-21-1989
Bout Summary:
Mike Tyson stopped challenger Carl (the Truth) Williams Friday night in a 93-second heavyweight championship fight that ended in a torrent of boos and jeers from the crowd of 11,112 at Atlantic City's Convention Hall.
After Tyson decked Williams with a left hook to the jaw, Williams arose at the count of six. The referee, former boxer Randy Neumann, could be seen speaking to Williams, who had briefly closed his eyes after rising.
Then Neumann waved his arms, signaling the end of the fight. Howls of protest began rolling down from the balcony of the cavernous Convention Hall, but howling loudest were Williams and his trainer, Carmine Graziano. Graziano said that Neumann "choked."
Crowds in Atlantic City are getting tired of one-round heavyweight title fights. In June of 1988, in the same building, Tyson knocked out Michael Spinks in 1:31.
After Friday night's bout, a defiant Tyson and promoter Don King met the media. King handed $100,000 in cash to the champion, and Tyson flipped the two bundles to his cornermen. "I told Mike before the fight tonight that I'd give him $100,000 for every knockout," King said with a laugh.
It wasn't a knockout, but no one much cared.
What most wanted to hear was Neumann's explanation of why he stopped the fight.
Neumann said he feared Tyson's left hook had given Williams a concussion. Only he, Neumann said, was looking into Williams' eyes--and he didn't like what he saw.
At the time, many thought Williams was able to continue, although at that point his chances of winning the fight appeared hopeless.
"I had a 10-second judgment to make, and he (Williams) could not answer a very simple question. That, plus the look in his eyes, told me he was not in very good shape," said Neumann, a former heavyweight who is now a New Jersey family financial planner. Tyson-Williams was his 12th world title fight.
"Yes, he was holding his hands up, but I was looking for more of a response than that. He closed his eyes for a couple of seconds, and then I got a blank stare. I asked him, 'Are you all right?' and didn't get an answer.
"I had 38 fights, I'd been there, too. When you get up from a knockdown, you gotta be ready to fight, not just be an erect target. Most fighters will go out of their way to show you they're ready to continue. He didn't do that."
Later, Neumann was asked if he would have stopped the fight under similar circumstances if it had been Tyson who had been down.
"Absolutely," he said.
"I asked him 'Are you OK?' twice, the first time he gave me a long blink, the lids came up . . . and there were barren eyes behind them."
Williams came out gunning for Tyson. He didn't retreat from the champion's explosive charges, but he was using his left forearm in close to hold Tyson's head down. Neumann warned him about holding in the first minute.
Tyson seemed more under control this time than he was in his five-round victory over Frank Bruno last February in Las Vegas. Gone this time were the wild, leaping punches. This time, working inside, he unloaded crisp, powerful blows on his 6-foot-4 opponent. About a half-minute before the end, he hurt Williams with a right hand to the ribs.
The finisher was half-hook, half-uppercut. It came from down low and caught Williams squarely on the chin.
"I was stunned, sure," an angry Williams said later. "I wasn't hurt, though. I wasn't wobbling all over. I was standing up straight, ready to fight. This is a heavyweight championship fight, a guy goes down and you stop the fight? Excuse me? What is this, a one-knockdown state?
"Something really funny was going on with this fight," he said. "This is business, right? You know the plays, you know the game."
Lost in the fury surrounding Neumann was Tyson's readiness to fight his most prominent challenger, unbeaten Evander Holyfield, who watched from ringside. When Holyfield's name came up during the news conference, Tyson almost sneered.
"Can I tell you somethin'?" he said. "I would love to fight Evander Holyfield. Right now, tonight. How about if we go down in the cellar right now, and the one who comes back up the stairs with the key is the champion?"
Tyson described the fight-ending punch as "not that hard," denounced writers who'd reported "that my head was all . . . up," and said he still considered Muhammad Ali "the greatest."
But King, who calls the shots in the 23-year-old champion's life, was being coy about the Tyson-Holyfield matchup, expected for early 1990.
"We're considering a number of opponents for Mike," he said.
Tyson, who earned $4 million Friday (Williams got $1 million), improved to 37-0 in his quest for Rocky Marciano's record of 49-0. It was his 17th first-round victory. Williams is 22-3.
Match Date: July 21, 1989
Mike Tyson's Amateur and Pro Record: www.sportenote.com/vedi_dettag...