In Hindsight, Is Buster Douglas over Mike Tyson still the biggest upset?

Yes.

Hindsight is 20/20 obviously, but odds are made here and then.

 

YES

As upsets go,nothing's topped it yet.

 

Yep, without question, Buster vs Mike was THE biggest upset in pugilistic history...and still is....and probably will be always.

 

Absolutely, and will always be.

 

I personally think it was but I'm an 80's baby. Looking back, I heard people were scared that Foreman was going to legitimately kill Ali in the ring. I don't think anyone thought that Tyson was actually gonna have a body on his record from Buster. I think Foreman losing to Ali was probably the biggest upset.

 

Back then, yes. In hindsight, no. It's still definitely a huge upset regardless, easily top 10 given the magnitude of Tyson's aura in the 80's, the fact he was unbeaten, undisputed, defeated boxers who either beat or gave Douglas a hard time, etc. But there were many clues in hindsight Tyson might lose and some people were actually confident he would, they were just the minority and written off like Douglas.

 

Ali was a former world champion, and had cleared the division twice at that point.

Douglas was... well Douglas.

 

I’d seen Douglas before and was confident he would make it into the 2nd round at least. That’s about it though. I NEVER thought any of the fighters of the time would beat Tyson. Maybe Holyfield & maybe maybe Foreman if he got lucky. That was wishful thinking. Tyson was getting sloppy but he didn’t show that much of a decline. I figured he’d get his focus back.

Biggest upset to me & the most shocking sporting event I’ve ever watched.

 

Remember it like it was yesterday! My newspaper had pictures from the final press conference, and Tyson was sitting there stone bored, elbows on the table propping up his head, his cheeks buried in his hands. He looked completely disinterested - but Buster took care of his boredom right quick lol.

I was in a bar, and a lot of guys must have bet Douglas cause the place ERUPTED when the KO came! I'll never forget it.

Greatest upset in boxing!

 

Ricardo Lopez losing his first round at his peak was far more unlikely then Tyson losing to Douglas…

 

In my lifetime, I was more surprised by Foreman's kayo of Moorer than any other fight. Back in the day when men were men, no 45-year old was going to win the heavyweight championship. But things have changed in the modern era!

 

I don’t think an upset is eligible for being graded down in its magnitude through hindsight vision.

An upset is a perception, rational or not, defined by the pervading “as and when” real time, feel/opinion.

Re Tokyo. The turn around from the most extreme forecast (90 secs longevity for Buster) to the actual complexion and outcome in Tokyo was HUGE.

It’s true though, sometimes the majority analysis’ doesn’t duly take into account all available pre fight information - and those oversights can be identified in hindsight, essentially because the fight itself highlights them - but imo, once an upset has occurred, the horse has bolted as far modifying real time perceptions after the fact of the outcome.

Other times, the analysis is more or less as good as it can possibly be - pundits cannot account for certain hidden variables and happenstances that might effect the complexion/outcome.

Some upsets appear as anomalies, against the true grain, a one-off, - take Lewis vs Rahman and McCall - and were proven to definitely be so on the occasions we were availed of rematches.

Other upsets actually upheld substantive superiority that simply wasn’t accounted/calculated for - with that superiority being proven to be the case forevermore - or at least resoundingly so in rematches - see Foreman vs Frazier - no anomalies there.

Some of us might feel the same re Hearns vs Duran - which was, as at the time, an upset just for its completely unpredicted complexion and emphatic ending.

They never rematched though and I know there are some who feel the planets were somewhat aligned for Tommy on that occasion. I personally think that fight reflected Hearns as pretty much having Roberto’s number the same way every time out.

Re Foreman vs Ali. It’s true, Ali’s “turn around”’victory relative to predictions was amazing - some worried that Ali might be permanently injured if not literally killed.

Ali said something interesting before the fight, words to the effect that while people picking against him might be shocked to see Ali win, they would be even more shocked to see Ali on the canvas, knocked out.

Given that there were many who forecast (and literally feared) a KO loss for Ali, Muhammad’s sentiment might’ve seemed divorced from reality.

But really, though many called for a brutal KO loss for Ali, I do believe, paradoxically, that they would’ve been shocked to have actually seen it happen at the same time.

Ali had that supernatural air about him and not least for his defying similar forecasts 10 years prior against Sonny Liston in Miami.

 

Im pretty sure it's still the biggest upset between two competitors in sporting history. In fact I think there is an article about it.

Here it is, a neat read: https://www.usbets.com/douglas-tyson-sports-betting-myth/

 

Yes, without a doubt. That was the like the lead news story the next morning. Pretty much every single person in America, grade school on up, got that news.

 

Of course it is, and probably will always be. Front page news throughout the world