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

I wasn't around back then, but imagine the newspaper article the next morning says "Douglas kos Tyson!!!!!" I would probably have spit my coffee out and said a few curse words. MT had the aura of invincibility written all over him for a very long time!!! On a side note, I was still a kid when it happened.

 

I'm not sure, the Liston-Ali fight might have been at least as surprising. Ali hadn't looked too great against Doug Jones and had kind of gotten by on the skin of his teeth against Henry Cooper. Liston had wiped out a two-time Champ twice.

 

Before Douglas-Tyson in 1990...the biggest upset was considered to be Jim Braddock beating Max Baer for the title in 1935...

 

I will refrain from posting on that one, this thread is only meant to make excuses for Mike Tyson's defeat and cause dissention among us posters. He lost plain and simple, time to move on.

 

Biggest upset by far as Mike was considered invincible and Douglas was seen as merely a tune-up before the big Tyson-Holyfield meeting. No one in their wildest dreams thought what ultimately happened would happen.

 

Time is the biggest factor .
Tyson vs Douglas was a hugh upset. But it's more recent than other big upsets at heavyweight, and more people are alive to have seen it than say J.Johnson vs T.Burns whom no one is around who saw that fight, and the racial undertones of the fight were even more shocking to the crowd and media present. Bigger upset than Johnson's victory over Jeffries that lead to the film of the fight being banned in the USA?
Is it bigger than Dempsey vs Tunney # 1? Schmeling vs Louis #1?
Clay vs Liston #1?
Ali vs Foreman?
Both Liston and Foreman were seen as just as dangerous as Tyson was. History tells us they may have been more dangerous.
Ruiz vs Joshua was a shocking upset to most fans who really don't study or have been involved in the the sport. ( Wasn't to me, I saw through Joshua well before the fight, I saw plenty of holes in his game where better skilled boxers of the past would've embarrassed him. But most of the new boxing generation were so focused on how BIG he is.)
Tyson vs Douglas was a big upset. But heavyweight boxing have had many.

 

During my time watching boxing, which admittedly was after this fight happened, I've not seen a bigger one. I think it is bigger than Schmeling, Tunney, and Ali vs. Liston just because of how unheralded Buster was and how little he did on the top level of the sport outside of this one fight.

 

It's obviously the biggest upset, Tokyo Douglas has become some mythical boxing figure who transcends boxing history, h2h he can beat any heavyweight champion in history, or so I've heard.

Either way Tyson would of won the rematch 9 times out of 10, it should of happened but Don King.

 

I think it has to be among one of the biggest yes.

 

It was probably the biggest upset due to Tysons aura at the time, although I feel the gap in skill between Rahman and Lewis makes for a greater upset.

 

I think it still is and there's multiple factors going into that.

The sheer aura of Tyson was just insane. He pretty much smashed through the 80's like nothing which alone was a feat pretty much no other boxer in the heavyweight division in recent years had accomplished. No one could stop him and if they survived the early rounds not being KO'ed, they pretty much ran on defense for the remainder of the fight taking a beating. The likes of Holmes and Spinks who were said to have the ability to put Tyson down failed. Marvis got flatlined in a vicious KO even though he didn't have Joe's heart. Berbick was staggering across the ring trying to get up. Tillis was outboxing Tyson at one point, yet Tyson managed to adapt and eventually turn the tables. He was truly invincible for a while as pretty much no strategy was working. Then came the loss to Douglas. With Tyson by far being the most popular boxer in the world back then, that by default makes it a massive upset.

It then gets magnified even higher because of all people who beat Tyson, it was a mediocre guy like Douglas who was known for quitting when the going got tough. Who would think that kind of guy would beat Tyson of all people when others like Spinks, Holmes, Berbick, etc couldn't?

Then came the Douglas vs Holyfield fight which was poor. Douglas got dismantled due to a rookie uppercut mistake. He showed nothing of the masterful skill he did against Tyson. That made the upset that much bigger because then people look at that as Douglas screwing things up by preventing the long awaited fight many people wanted: Prime Tyson vs Prime Holyfield. We didn't get that fight and to make up for it, we got a crappy version of Douglas taking on Holyfield, not the same one who put down Prime Tyson.

We could've gotten two of potentially the biggest heavyweight fights ever (Tyson vs Holyfield or Tokyo Douglas vs Holyfield) and didn't get either one.

There's probably a lot more factors going into that topic that more knowledgeable people can discuss, but basically that I think is why so many people still consider it to be the biggest one in boxing history.

 

Knowing what we know now it may no longer be worthy of the 42-1 odds but it wasn't like Tyson's ring results had been effected by his tumultuous lifestyle. His previous four fights, all title bouts, lasted an average of five minutes and 58 seconds.

Mike Tyson was a force of nature and Buster's win was the biggest upset in boxing history.

 

That's an emphatic Y E S

 

As flash24 said there have been many upsets before and since. Also I wanted Andy Ruiz Jr to beat Anthony Joshua first time round in 2019 even before knowing the outcome of the fight because I like to support the underdog. I don't know how many others were rooting for a Buster Douglas win against Mike Tyson in 1990 but I am sure it was in the minority. Is it the most significant upset in boxing history? The most memorable? And the best performance of a underdog overcoming the unbeatable bully? I'd say yes