Biggest upset per decade (choose one only)

Who on earth fought Tarver won the first fight?

 

Which part is wrong? All of it is 100% accurate.

No one gave Tarver much of a chance in the rematch. The prevailing thought was that Jones would return to vintage form and beat the Hell outta Tarver. The thought was that if Tarver couldn't even beat Jones on his WORST night, how could he possibly win if Roy returned to form?

Those are the facts.

 

I edited my original post with some more facts:

Lewis was a 20-1 favorite over Rahman. Jones was only a 4-1 favorite in the Tarver rematch.

I won money on Tarver in that fight.

Rahman's win was a much, much, much bigger upset. There's no comparison.

 

I disagree with that. The reason? Lewis-McCall.

There had ALWAYS been questions around Lewis' chin. That fact that Rachman clocked him was surprising, but not entirely shocking. PLUS, if you remember, leading up to the fight it was WELL DOCUMENTED in the media that Lewis wasn't training. The writing was on the wall.

Roy was thought to be invincible, and was thought to have a great chin.

Jones-Tarver was a bigger upset.

 

Problem is @mrkoolkevin is that you're just going by betting odds, but that doesn't always tell the full story of an upset. Sometimes, but in this case.

When Tarver clocked Roy, it was the most shocking result in the sport since Tyson-Douglas. The boxing world literally froze.

When Rachman clocked Lewis, he was simply doing what McCall had done years before.

Lennox Lewis was never held in as high regard as Roy Jones.

 

Going by the logic of odds only, then I'm sure Joshua-Ruiz was a bigger upset than Curry-Honeyghan.

But perspective matters. Joshua sucks, while Curry was considered the P4P and the heir apparent to Leonard.

Therefore, the bigger upset is Curry-Honeyghan.

Odds don't tell the full story.

 

Speaking of Duran, I couldn't pick Duran-DeJesus 1 on this list.

At the time DeJesus beat Duran, no one yet realized Duran was gonna be one of the greatest fighters ever. He was still pre-peak.

So in retrospect it looks like a huge upset, but this is why I said perspective matters.

 

50s: Turpin vs. Robinson I
60s: Liston vs. Ali I
70s: Spinks vs. Ali I
80s: probably Barkley vs. Hearns I
90s: Tyson vs. Douglas

 

No one has mentioned Randall over Chavez yet.

 

Being ‘there for the taking’ doesn’t mean people expected him to be taken that night.

The result was a complete shock to the world.

 

Sorry, you're completely wrong. There's just no other way to put it. The huge gap between the odds of these fights reflects what most informed viewers recognized at the time. While the abrupt, devastating fashion in which Tarver dispatched Jones was shocking, Tarver's win itself was only a moderately big upset. Tarver was a dangerous, highly-skilled, highly-regarded contender with an impressive pedigree. He'd avenged his only professional loss, against one of the other top contenders of that era, by stoppage. He was in the Ring top 10 in his division 6 years in a row by the time of the Jones rematch, and the top contender for two of them. He had just given Roy an extremely competitive fight.

On the other hand, Hasim Rahman was a fringe contender who was most well known for being punched through the commentator's table by Oleg Maskaev (who, as fate would have it, was himself punched out the ring by Kirk Johnson in an early ko loss soon thereafter). Nobody gave Rahman a ghost of a chance against Lewis, who had not lost in 7 years despite fighting a long list of very powerful opponents. It was instantly regarded as one of the biggest boxing upsets of all time and still remains so.

@mark ant was correct.

 

These hindsight "he was there for the taking" posts... I don't buy it. Did you guys really pick Leon Spinks and Tarver at the time? Cool if you did, but most didn't. That's why they're upsets.

I've been watching boxing since I was 8 back in 1976. Off the top of my head the only upset I called was Coetzee over Dokes, and that wasn't until I saw the weights in the newspaper that morning. When I saw that Coetzee had trained down to 215 I had a strong feeling that he'd pull it off. But I can't say I knew it for sure.

There's a lot of fights where I called an upset and it didn't happen. I thought Holmes was "ready for the taking" after the Snipes fight and I picked Cooney. I questioned Tyson's partying in 88 and 89 and bet a few bucks on Michael Spinks and picked Carl Williams. Nope. After seeing Buster Douglas look pretty good against Tony Tucker I thought he'd be a decent challenge for Tyson, but I didn't pick him to win. Same with Holyfield... unlike many people at the time who thought Tyson may seriously hurt Holyfield, I thought Evander would be a stiffer test than most people thought. But I didn't pick him to win. Again, that's why they're upsets.