Douglas Is Knocked Down, Dragged Out : Boxing: Former champion struggles with onslaught of questions in the aftermath of decisive beating.

He sat on the stage, a distant, vacant look in his eyes. His name was James (Buster) Douglas, and until an hour or so before this, he had been heavyweight boxing champion of the world.

But now, as he sat there in the midst of a loud and disorganized post-fight news conference, his presence could best be described as author Gertrude Stein had once described the city of Oakland. For Buster, there was no there there.

This fight had been billed as “The Moment of Truth.” For Buster, the moment of truth occurred exactly 1 minute 10 seconds into the third round. That’s when he had thrown a wild right-hand uppercut in the general direction of challenger Evander Holyfield. A second later, after Holyfield had merely stepped back to allow the air from Buster’s misguided missile to woosh by, the quicker, faster, fitter challenger sent his right hand about three feet, crashing into the face of poor Buster.

It’s an old phrase, but it fits perfectly in this case: Buster, all wobbly and jiggly from coming into his first title defense a good 15 pounds more than what he should have, never knew what hit him. He went down faster than all the pizza he has obviously been eating.

Strangely, almost eerily, Douglas rolled on his back, eyes wide open. He pawed at his vacant eyes. They stayed open, but he stayed on his back, remaining there well after he had been counted out.

Many who saw it, and who watched the replay closely afterward, wondered why he didn’t get up, didn’t even try. Eddie Futch, trainer for undercard fighter Riddick Bowe and a veteran of many years in the fight game, told reporters that it looked to him as if Douglas could have gotten up.

In a news conference, Douglas repeatedly was asked various versions of that question. His answers, like most of his answers to the questions directed to him, were mostly babble.

“I tried to pick up the count,” he said at one point. “If I could have gotten up, I would have.”

That, of course, raised the obvious question of why he couldn’t have picked up the count from a standing position.

When the questions got more specific, such as, why he rubbed his eyes for so long after he rolled on his back, he responded: “I was trying to focus, but I got a glove caught in it.”

The overwhelming impression, as the question-and-answer session continued, was that Douglas was there, but not quite sound of mind nor body. A knockout is a knockout, and most people aren’t asked to be glib and candid in front of a thousand or so people shortly after suffering a beating, so his state of mind, or lack thereof, might be understandable.

His statements, much like his face, were unemotional:

--”I’m not embarrassed by this . . . It was the kind of thing of obtaining one goal by winning the title and then not obtaining another (by successfully defending).”

--”I overextended myself. I was hoping to get some rounds under my belt, because my mechanics wasn’t working.”

--”Sometimes it goes your way, sometimes it doesn’t.”

--”I was ready to fight. It just didn’t work out.”

Near the end of the news conference, somebody asked if this might be his last fight. Douglas is 30 years old and collected a little less than $20 million for his 7 minutes or so of work Thursday night. There hadn’t been a great deal of discussion about career endings going into this fight.

But Douglas’ answer was somewhat surprising: “As of this point, I don’t know.”

So, “The Moment of Truth” might have also been the end of Buster.

If so, what a short saga it has been: From a 1987 fight in which he quit against Tony Tucker, to an amazing February, 1990, knockout of Mike Tyson, to a lackadaisical effort against a man 38 pounds lighter whose training methods included being stretched and pulled to fighting trim by a 72-year-old woman who was a former ballet dancer.

What will history write about Douglas? Will he be seen as merely an aberration on the heavyweight boxing scene? Will he become the answer to a trivia question about who started Holyfield on a long title reign? Or will he be seen as boxing’s chubby Tin Man, heavy of flesh but lacking of heart?

Were the boxing historians to write it now, the space would be mostly vacant, much like Douglas in the aftermath of Thursday’s loss.