The Last Great Fight
Designer name to come
"The last great fight" is how some people refer to Buster Douglas' shocking victory over Mike Tyson in 1990. How shocking? Apparently only one sports book in Vegas would take action on the fight, and they were offering 42 to 1 odds. Even casual boxing fans know Tyson lost that night, which makes it odd (?) that we see Douglas down on the canvas on this cover. 
Two guesses on why we're seeing what we're seeing: 1) What does Buster Douglas look like? Yeah, I don't know either. 2) Back to the casual fans: even they know an iconic 20th centry image when they see it:
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4 comments:
This might have made a better cover: http://assets.espn.go.com/i/page2/photos/040806buster.jpg
You get the Ali echo and a good look at the Douglas, which seems kind of essential.
Also, the typeface is terrible. Seems like a lot of books about boxing use that font (I'm thinking of Jones' Sonny Liston).
One other reason: 3.) Tyson's knockdown of Douglas in the eighth was highly controversial and nearly robbed Douglas of his victory, after the fact. For many (maybe even most), Douglas on the mat, pounding the canvas with his fist, is the most enduring image of the fight.
4) not knowing the image, it leaves the suspense for those that might only know that Douglas won... the cover is the turning point, the beginning of the complexity. Its a fantastic cover.
I like that the image is cut out. feels very situationist collage. and the JOE LAYDEN font.
Even Douglas won, he was knocked by Tyson two or three rounds before the eight, when the fight was decided. Perhaps that´s the reason for the unexactly cover.
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