Trevor Berbick stood at the exact hinge of boxing history, twice. And both times, it broke him.
In December 1981, he shared a ring with Muhammad Ali. It was the last fight of Ali's life, the final, sad chapter of the greatest career the sport had known, and it was Berbick who beat him, by unanimous decision. He had closed the book on a legend.
Five years later, he was on the wrong side of the next one. On November 22, 1986, Berbick defended his WBC heavyweight title against a ferocious 20-year-old named Mike Tyson. It lasted two rounds. Tyson battered him to the canvas, where Berbick famously staggered and fell three times trying to stand, and became the youngest heavyweight champion in history. Berbick was the stepping stone to the Tyson era.
From there his life unravelled. In 1992 he was convicted in Florida of raping his children's babysitter and sent to prison. After serving his time he violated parole, and in 1997 he was deported from the United States.
He went home to Jamaica, and that is where it ended. On October 28, 2006, Trevor Berbick was found dead in a church courtyard, his head split open by a steel pipe. He had been beaten to death over a land dispute, and the men convicted of killing him included his own nephew.
The man who beat Ali and lost to Tyson, murdered by family in a churchyard. 🥊
- Fight Stories
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