The Japanese sports media is reporting that former world heavyweight boxing champion Buster Douglas was ringside for tonight’s World Victory Road ‘Sengoku 2′ event. THE SAVAGE SCIENCE provided the ONLY English language live play by play of the show.

Douglas became a big part of boxing history when he knocked out heavily favored Mike Tyson in Tokyo back in 1990. The story is that WVR is trying to sign Douglas to fight on an upcoming card in the ‘train wreck’ type matchup that the Japanese fight fans eat up. The media reports suggest that Douglas has been training in MMA with Kevin Randleman, though there’s nothing that we’ve seen to indicate the veracity of that relationship. Not sure who they’d have Douglas fight since at age 48 and out of action since 1999 they can’t exactly put him in against Josh Barnett. They might have to bring in a fighter like Zuluzihno and that could potentially be too much for Douglas to handle. Hopefully they don’t try to lure Bob Sapp back into the ring since he’s better off enjoying his lucrative career as a celebrity than he is continuing to fight since his recent bouts have shown that his heart just isn’t in it any more.

Douglas remains well known among even casual boxing fans due to his upset victory over Tyson, and he’s an even bigger name in Japan since his career defining fight took place at the Tokyo Dome. Douglas has had a strange road since then, basically living off the reported $20+ million he earned for his only title defense. That fight would see a clearly out of shape Douglas KO’d in the 3rd round by Evander Holyfield. From the looks of it, Douglas did little after that for a few years besides eat. At one point he exceeded 400 pounds. Considering he weighed 220 1/2 for the Tyson fight that’s not a pretty picture. He nearly died from a diabetic coma, after which he resumed training and prepared for a comeback. The comeback never gained much traction, but it may have saved his life as he was able to get his weight down to the mid 200’s.

Unless he’s in dire financial straits, which hasn’t been mentioned in the Japanese or US media in recent years, hopefully the up-close perspective of the physical demands of MMA will make him think better of taking up a new sport at nearly 50 years of age and after almost a decade of inactivity. Clearly, he’d never be sanctioned to fight MMA in the US which again underscores the need for greater regulation of the sport in Japan.