A lot of them have terrible losses on paper. How could a Mike Tyson lose to Kevin McBride? Gipsy Daniels KO1 Schmeling? Fireman Flynn KO1 Dempsey? Leon Spinks UD15 Muhammad Ali? McCall KO2 Lennox Lewis? All of them are candidates. Walcott losing to Johnny Allen and Charles losing to Toxie Hall are pretty bad as well.
Why Frazier against Foreman? Foreman is a fellow ATG and just happened to win in a one-sided fashion. Yes Frazier was the favorite but not by too much. With Foreman's power and Frazier's lack of durability to big punchers it wasn't a given that he would win. Yes it was one-sided but it was a bout between two ATG's(not at the moment though it would be foolish to think Foreman didn't have a big chance against Frazier). Tyson losing to Douglas is not only the biggest upset in boxing history, it may just be the biggest upset in sports history. Douglas was NOT an ATG like Foreman was and just happened to pull off the impossible. That was his night and the worst loss ever. Douglas was an on and off talent that Tyson should've ran through but things didn't happen that way on that night.
Johnson to Hart, draw to O'Brien, draw to Jim Johnson, KO to Lighheavy Choynski, KO to farmhand Willard... wow, Johnson sure does have a lot of them. Go figure. He's the greatest heavyweight since the dawn of creation.
People are keen to degrade Douglas as rubbish, but i say the Buster of '89 Berbick, '89 McCall & '90 Tyson is a pretty good talent... I favour him against all the guys listed in this topic who pulled off these upsets, except Foreman (Frazier fight).
He wasn't a "bum" I hate when people say that. He was a good contender just on and off. I'm a bit confused about the TS' question. Does he mean the worst guy a hvy ATG lost to? If he does than Douglas does not fit the bill. I was thinking worse upset so Tyson-Douglas would apply then.
Marshall was a mediocre light heavy. There is no excuse tenable here. And I suppose Liston apologists will try to convince me that Sonny was 17 years old for this fight and 52 10 years later when he lost to Clay.
If we are making no alowance whatsoever for circumstances, then Sam Langford would hold this dubious honour. When he was blind at the end of his career he was loosing to some real no name fighters.
Far too much controversy and dispute over the validity of Dempsey's "losses" to Flynn and Meehan for me to consider them. Ditto for Ali-Liston II. However, Schmeling had previously decisioned Gipsy Daniels over ten in Berlin just two months earlier. The reigning EBU LHW Champion, he followed this win by defending that European title with a first round knockout of his successor to that crown, Italian Champ Michele Bonaglia, while Daniels followed his loss to Schmeling by getting beaten over the championship distance by Len Johnson in London. Daniels had recently won the BBBofC and Empire LHW Titles and blew out Max in his 100th outing, but there was nothing in Billy's record to suggest he could produce a result like what happened in their Frankfurt rematch. It seems absurd to suggest that Schmeling might get caught cold with seven previous first round knockouts, including the fresh one over Bonaglia. (There's also televised live sound footage of Max rebounding from the Louis rematch by taking out Heuser in one. He was not a slow starter.) Get this: In 152 total career professional bouts spanning from August 1919 to May 1935, Billy Daniels produced a grand total of 37 stoppage wins. On February 16, 1922, the Gipsy knocked out one Harry Ashdown in a single round. Ashdown then retired with a 1(1)-4(2)-0 record. The ONLY other time Daniels ever took anybody out in a single round, Max Schmeling was the victim. What are the odds? I absolutely agree with Unforgiven's heads-up mention echoed by TGA of Daniels-Schmeling II. Regarding Ali, it simply wasn't his style or temperament to attempt this sort of blowout, but I'm pretty confident he would have done this to Richard Dunn if he wasn't such a dedicated showman, intent on demonstrating his footwork and dancing to the paying fans first. (Also, he and Dundee predicted a fifth round knockout, written inside Muhammad's gloves. He clearly carried Dunn to make that prediction stick.)