Resiliency: The Greatest Upset in Sports History (Motivational Video)

Resiliency: The Greatest Upset in Sports History

By Mateusz M

The Greatest Upset in Sports History. The 1990 Boxing Heavyweight Championship Fight. Underdog Buster Douglas fights then undefeated, undisputed heavyweight champion Mike Tyson. Douglas is given a 1/50 chance of winning the match and soon gets knocked down by Tyson. To the surprise of the whole crowd, he manages to get back up. Nobody ever got back up after a Mike Tyson knocked them out. What happened next is engraved in the Sports history books…

Transcript:
“You can write everything down if you want to, be brave enough to write every one of your goals down, but I’m going to tell you something. Life’s gonna hit you in your mouth and you gotta do me a huge favour; your why has to be greater than that knockdown. Buster Douglas got knockdown. Nobody ever got knocked down by Mike Tyson and ever get  back up. It was almost a ten count, he was stumbling.. 4..3..2..1.. ding! ding! ding! Saved by the bell. He goes to his corner, and the whole world is like ‘yep that’s it’. Once he comes back out, that’s it, Mike is just gonna hammer him. And exactly that, Mike Tyson come out like – I got him. I got this kid up against to rope. Listen to me, many of you right now, life’s got you up against the rope. You can’t give up, you can’t give in. Listen to me, if it would be easy everybody would do it. And it life’s got you backed up, I need you to do what Buster Douglas did. Buster Douglas started fighting back! And the world was shocked! Goliath has been knocked down, “what happened?” And they went to Buster Douglas, and they asked Buster Douglas simply like, “what happened?” And Buster Douglas said “Listen to me, it’s really simple. Before my mother died. She told the whole world that I was going to beat Mike Tyson.” “And two days before the fight, my mother died.” Buster Douglas had decision to make. When his mother died, he can die with his mother or made a decision, ‘I can wake up… and I can live for mom’ and he knocked Mike Tyson out. Simply because his why was greater than that punch. His why was greater than defeat! His why was greater than his trial and his tribulation. And I’m telling you. If you don’t know what your why is and your why isn’t strong, you’re gonna get knocked down every single day!”

Speech by Eric Thomas