Tyson Era Goes Buster : Boxing: Douglas scores knockout in 10th round, but appears to have benefited from a long count in the eighth.

For Iron Mike Tyson, unbeaten in 37 fights and thought to be on his way to Rocky Marciano’s career heavyweight record of 49-0, the unthinkable happened in Tokyo Sunday afternoon.

Before about 30,000 in the Tokyo Dome, Douglas won nearly every round, closed Tyson’s left eye and knocked him out in the 10th round.

Tyson had nearly pulled it out in the eighth round. He dropped Douglas with a hard right uppercut, and whether or not Douglas beat the count at the end of the round was the subject of heated debate afterward.

Tyson’s manager, promoter Don King, filed a protest. Two hours after the fight, the heads of the WBA, WBC and the Japan Boxing Federation announced there would be a news conference several hours later.

The president of the Japan Boxing Federation said videotape showed Douglas was down for 12 seconds in the eighth round.

(Videotape replays by The Times showed that Douglas was down for 13 seconds.)

Said King: “Buster Douglas was knocked out. He was down for 12 seconds. All we want is a fair result.”

The controversy brought to mind the Long Count that occurred during the heavyweight title fight between Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney in Chicago Sept. 22, 1927. After being knocked down in the seventh round, Tunney had more than 10 seconds to recover because referee Dave Barry waited for Dempsey to go to a neutral corner before starting the count. Tunney, too, went on to win the fight.

The result seemed fair to Douglas, whose chances were thought to be so hopeless that most Las Vegas casinos posted no odds.

As Tyson lay on his back in Douglas’ corner in the 10th round, Douglas raised both hands over his head and walked calmly, not even smiling, back to his corner.

The final scene played out here was almost impossible to believe. There was Tyson, who had his mouthpiece in backward, held upright in the embrace of referee Octavio Meyrom of Mexico.

Then, the stampede.

Douglas’ cornermen vaulted over and through the ropes and touched off a wild celebration that resulted in fistfights between Douglas and Tyson cornermen.

Thirty minutes later, Japanese spectators too, after the fighters had left, poured into the ring to have their pictures taken. And 30 minutes after that, the ring itself was gone, efficiently dismantled and packed off for storage, its place in history secure.

Tyson, who was behind on points on virtually everyone’s scorecard except one judge at the finish, went out like many of his 37 victims, battered by punches to the head.

Los Angeles judge Larry Rozadilla had Douglas ahead, 88-82. But Japanese judge Ken Morita had Tyson ahead, 87-86, and the third judge, Makazu Uchida, had it 86-86.

As a pro, nothing like this has ever happened to the man some were already calling the greatest heavyweight champion ever. He had never been knocked off his feet, let alone knocked out. His last defeat in the ring was a decision loss to Henry Tillman of Los Angeles, who beat the 17-year-old Tyson twice at the 1984 U.S. Olympic trials.

Tyson, whose knees and legs seemed to be unsteady from the fifth round on, was sent out with a tremendous right uppercut to the chin near Douglas’ corner in the 10th. The champion reeled backward, and Douglas was on him instantly. Tyson was defenseless as Douglas smashed him with a right and left, another right and, finally, a long sweeping left hook that put Tyson on his back.

As he hit the blue canvas, his mouthpiece popped into the air. As he was counted out, he groped for it and stuffed it into his mouth backward.

As Meyrom counted him out, Tyson’s face was slack and his mouth open, partially gripping the backward mouthpiece. His glazed eyes were aimed toward the baseball stadium’s center field fence.

The immediate ramifications of the upset are these:

--The June 18 Tyson-Evander Holyfield fight Donald Trump paid $12 million for, the one that was to pay Tyson $22 million to $25 million and $10 million to Holyfield, is gone.

--Gone is Tyson’s seven-fight, $24.5-million contract with HBO, which had two fights left.

Such is the impact of the biggest upset in heavyweight championship history. Bigger than Michael Spinks stopping Larry Holmes at 48-1. Bigger than Cassius Clay stopping Sonny Liston in 1964. Bigger than Max Schmeling knocking out Joe Louis in 1936 when neither man was champion. Bigger than Jimmy Braddock, a 10-1 shot, beating Max Baer in 1935.

Yes, bigger even than Jack Johnson knocking out heavily favored Jim Jeffries in Reno in 1910.

And this is a fight King couldn’t sell in the United States. Japanese promoter Akihiko Honda paid Tyson $6 million Sunday and Douglas fought for a sum estimated to be between $1.2 million and $2 million.

Holyfield, sitting impassively at ringside, shed no tears over the $10-million payday he saw fluttering away as Tyson was counted out.

Said Dan Duva, Holyfield’s promoter, “Evander said to me in the seventh round, when it looked like Mike was in deep trouble: ‘Buster wants to win the heavyweight championship of the world and he doesn’t care who this guy is.’ ”

Douglas, a 29-year-old from Columbus, Ohio, who barely beat unknown Oliver McCall on the undercard of last summer’s Tyson-Carl Williams fight in Atlantic City and came in with a 29-4-1 record, showed Tyson great respect in the first two or three rounds by jabbing busily and moving counterclockwise away from Tyson’s right-hand power.

He changed that strategy in the third round, stood in there and fought him, face to face. The reason? Because Tyson was too easy to hit on this day.

“The key to beating this guy is that when you hit him, hit him with a lot of power,” Douglas told reporters two days ago.

Tyson barely missed getting caught with three big right hands Douglas threw in the first round. He did land a right uppercut that snapped Tyson’s head back, and the quiet, polite crowd began to murmur.

Most U.S. writers at ringside gave Douglas the first three rounds. The Times’ card had Tyson winning only the fourth, sixth, seven and eighth rounds. Going into the 10th round of the 12-rounder, the Times had Douglas ahead, 86-84.

Early in the fourth, Douglas landed a long, straight right hand that sent sweat flying off Tyson’s head again. From midway through the fourth round to the finish, Tyson was on unsteady legs and the old aggressiveness was slowly fading from the 23-year-old champion.

But at the end of the fourth, Tyson landed his best blows of the fight, two hard, chopping right hands with five seconds left. Douglas began the fifth round immediately with two scoring rights and followed them with a left uppercut inside. He was standing flatfooted in front of the once indestructible champion.

Both men took a breather in the sixth, with Tyson landing two left hooks.

In the eighth, Tyson’s strength seemed to have gone. He cracked Douglas on the chin with a hard right hand inside, but the punch had nothing on it and Douglas didn’t even blink.

At the end of the round, however, the battered, shaky champion nearly pulled it out. Douglas had rocked his foe with two right hands that had sent Tyson to the ropes. As his cornermen were going berserk, Douglas delivered a right to Tyson’s chin and drove him to the ropes again.

Then, it seemed as if the miracle had arrived for Tyson. With his face slack from shock and pain, his mouth open and his knees trembling, he caught Douglas with a powerful uppercut under the chin that put Douglas on the seat of his pants.

Now it was Douglas who was slack-faced and shaky. Meyrom did not appear to pick up the count from the timekeeper. One reporter’s ringside stopwatch had Douglas going down at 2:57 of the round, but you can’t be saved by the bell in a title fight.

Douglas came out hammering in the ninth round and Tyson’s eye, partially closed when the round began, was completely closed by the end of the round.

Afterward, Douglas calmly spoke of his mother, who died suddenly last month.

“This was for my mother, I wanted it for her. God bless her heart,” he said. “I was relaxed out there. I wasn’t afraid of him, I fear only God.

“There was a time when I’d fight a good fight, then fight a bad fight. I was mediocre sometimes, but I just told myself it was time for the real James Douglas to come out.”

The new heavyweight champion was the only participant in the locker room. The former champion left the building and, as one report had it, was on his way to the airport to catch a 3:30 p.m. flight.

In the dizzying, confused aftermath, as reports flew all over the building of protest meetings, one thing was very clear.

Rocky Marciano’s unbeaten 49-0 career record is safe for now.

BOXING STUNNERS SOME OF THE BIGGEST SURPRISES IN THE HEAVYWEIGHT DIVISION

DATE BOXERS AND RESULT SITE Feb. 15, 1978 Leon Spinks Dec.(15) Muhammad Ali Las Vegas March 31, 1973 Ken Norton Dec.(12) Muhammad Ali San Diego Jan. 22, 1973 George Foreman KO (2) Joe Frazier Kingston, Jamaica Oct. 30, 1974 Muhammad Ali KO (8) George Foreman Kinshasa, Zaire Feb. 25, 1964 Muhammad Ali KO (7) Sonny Liston Miami June 26, 1959 Ingemar Johansson KO (3) Floyd Patterson New York June 19, 1936 Max Schmeling KO (12) Joe Louis New York Sept. 23, 1926 Gene Tunney Dec.(10) Jack Dempsey Philadelphia