In hindsight does mcalls ko of Lewis rate higher than Douglas S ko of tyson?

I think Douglas' win > McCall's. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to belittle Oliver's achievement, but it feels to me that Douglas really comprehensively beat and out-gutted Tyson for the win, whereas your generic big, strong-chinned slugger might have replicated what McCall did.

 

I mean Lewis was the better fighter but Tyson was seen as more of an unstoppable force.

I'd say Buster over McCall because Lewis hadn't reached his pinnacle yet. Tyson had.

 

No Tyson was viewed as invincible when he lost. Lewis never reached that level of perception.

 

No. At the time, it was shocking to even see Mike Tyson get hit with a punch (seriously). And Buster broke him down over 10 rounds and stopped him. And the final series of blows to put Tyson down were beautiful.

McCall closed his eyes and threw a counter right that landed. If the ref had allowed the fight to continue, I don't know if McCall even stops Lewis. Oliver wasn't known as a great finisher.

On the other hand, there was no way Tyson was going to survive if the ref had allowed him to continue that night. Buster was in domination mode.

Douglas' win was beautiful. McCall's (landing with his eyes closed) was about as fluky as it gets.

 

The Buster Douglas fight was the biggest shock because the shock lasted for the better part of an hour.

Regardless of the cards, Douglas dominated that fight from the start to finish. By as early as round 2, the HBO announcers were marveling at how well Douglas was doing and landing on Tyson.

Lampley admitted later they just couldn't wrap their minds around what they were seeing.

Tyson had made 10 title defenses, was unified champ, and was totally dominant to that point. Carl Williams was the IBF #1 contender, Frank Bruno was the WBC #1 contender, and Tyson just squashed them. Holyfield was the WBA #1 contender, but he'd just gone to war with freaking Alex Stewart. At the time, no one gave Holyfield a whisper of a chance to actually take the crown off Tyson.

That's why the Douglas fight was a monster upset.

People look back on it now, and they don't consider that even the early rounds, when Douglas was landing jabs and combinations ... that those were SHOCKING. People didn't really hit Tyson with jabs and combinations back then. He was that dominant.

Lewis wasn't that dominant when McCall beat him. McCall wasn't as much of an underdog. And many, myself included, thought Lewis-McCall I was a bad stoppage. It was one punch with Oliver's eye's closed. I hesitate to call any KO punch a fluke, but that's about as close as one gets.

There was nothing fluky about Buster's performance that night, because it went on round after round after round. And it continued even after Tyson flattened Douglas. The ninth round was one of Buster's best rounds of the fight. He dominated from start to finish ... and it took a while.

Tyson didn't start losing to lesser fighters until 14 YEARS LATER. Just because a nearly 40-year-old Tyson eventually began "quitting " against guys like Danny Williams and Kevin McBride 14 AND 15 YEARS AFTER HE LOST TO DOUGLAS ...

Those performances don't lessen Douglas' performance in 1990 when Mike Tyson was 24.

Not by a longshot. Most fighters don't even box for 15 years.

I'm not going to consider Douglas' win any less of an accomplishment because Mike Tyson looked bad 15 years after that.

If someone had knocked out Muhammad Ali in 1967 and took his title, would you say it WASN'T that big of a deal because Ali looked like crap against Trevor Berbick in 1981, so it was expected?

That makes no sense.

 

not even close, when Douglas beat Tyson I thought the world was ending. it was weird.

 

YES. The Tyson loss was bigger. YES, the Tyson loss was more shocking. YES.

It was and remains the biggest upset in the history of the sport.

Lewis-McCall wasn't then and isn't now.

Clay-Liston, in hindsight, wasn't as big of an upset ... because Clay went on to become Ali.

McCall went on to defend against Larry Holmes. He nearly stopped Bruno in the last round of his losing defense against him. He knocked out Henry Akinwande. He knocked out Oleg Maskaev.

Douglas did nothing after beating Tyson. Douglas couldn't have beaten Tyson again if they fought 100 times. That's why his win that night was so shocking. Because Douglas totally dominated a guy who he had no business beating and arguably could never beat again. Douglas was never as good again. And it wasn't because Tyson was so awful all night (his corner was but the fighter wasn't) ... it's because Douglas was so much better than he'd ever been before or after.

I'm sure McCall fought as good or better after that. The fight with Lewis was so short (around 4 minutes) and such a quick stoppage that you couldn't tell really.

 

Rahman'a win was better than McCall's. That's back when Lewis was struggling with Bruno.

 

I agree. The Rahman fight was more shocking than the McCall fight because it was so concussive. Lewis was OUT. And Lewis was at the top of his game when that was signed, unlike earlier with McCall.

The first McCall fight just seemed annoying. Lewis got caught. He got up at six. They could've let the fight go on. It was a ref's call. There wasn't anything overly special about McCall's win to me.

 

I understand what you're saying. I'm a big Lewis fan, actually.

But looking at their careers (Lewis and Tyson's) as a whole ... I'm not less impressed with Douglas' win. Douglas beat Tyson when Tyson was a dominant 24 year-old unified world champ. He didn't beat a has-been. And he didn't beat a guy who hadn't reached his potential yet.

Like I said earlier, if someone had scored a monster upset over Ali when he was a dominant 24-year-old champ in 1967 ... I wouldn't consider that a lesser win because Ali would lose to Leon Spinks and Holmes and Berbick more than a decade later.