10 greatest upsets ever

Ali is a king, his wins over heavy faves Liston and Foreman are folklore.


Leonard - Hagler HAS to be mentioned. Unbelievable.

Douglas - Tyson obviously

Hearns - Hill, down from 5's to 2-1 fight day.

Holyfield - Tyson, bout 20-1.

Holmes - Spinks 1, often forgotten!

Rosario - Bramble

Lockridge - Mayweather

Foreman - Moorer

Starling - Breland?

Nelson - Fenech II

Fenech vs about 8 (predominatly Americans) in a row

Laing - Duran

Sims - Duran

Lawlor - Duran

DeJesus - Duran

Ceuvas - Stafford

 

Any idea what the odds were at Holmes-Spinks I ? As i remember, Holmes was favorite but not by that by a margin.

 

Mate, if memory serves me correct Holmes was 5-1 at worst. Big fave, big big fave. No 175 champ had ever won the heavyweight title. Holmes was the runaway fave i promise.

 

Wow, 5-1 is a lot more than i expected. Pity that Holmes trained as if he was 100-1. Spinks was great and really stepped up to the challenge, but in a sense it was more Holmes' loss than Spinks' win, seeing how the rematch went about.


Other light-heavies had won it before though, Charles and Tunney.

 

Even in hindsight, SRL's performance against Hagler makes no sense.

Look at Hagler/Mugabe, then check out SRL/Howard. Marv was considered the P4P best in the world. Kevin Howard had Ray on the deck, and the bout sewed up on the scorecards when SRL was gifted with a spurious late stoppage win.

Taking into account that ten ounce gloves were used, in a match scheduled for 12 rather than 15 rounds, and that Hagler was in a perceptible decline, and it still seems to me that Marv should have beaten Ray handily.

Who could have predicted that Ray would keep his feet against Hagler when he failed to against 149 pound fringe WW contender Howard?

In the case of most upsets, we can retroactively understand how they occurred. But just as Ray was decked by Howard, so too was he dropped by Donny LaLonde. Yet Hagler was unable to floor him.

My suspicion is that Ray must have made a deal with the Devil, to have been able to perform as well as he did.

 

They were never world champ tho at 175. Spinks was the first.

 

True. Even Fitz won the HW title first, then the LHW title afterwards.

 

jones tarver wouldve been alot bigger IMO if jones didnt look so bad in the 1st fight.

 

Please; Napoles kicked his arse, got cut and the fight needed to be stopped. They had a rematch and Napoles kicked his arse and stopped him, on a cut.

IMO, hardly a great upset, more an unlucky break for Napoles.

 

What about that time when Oscar De La Hoya beat Floyd Mayweather...

 

I am sure I have missed a few, but I did try to keep the fights mainstream.

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I don't think so. If I recall correctly, Barkley beat Hearns by decision in a rematch. I didn't see it, but my cousin came by a week later and Hearns and Barkley beat the **** out of each other.

Every fighter seems to have that someone that has their number, I guess Barkley had Hearns'.

 

After the obvious, good picks with Rosario/Bramble, Lockbridge/Mayweather and Laing/Duran.

Simms/Duran and to a degree Lawlor/Duran were not out and out shocks; maybe add DeJesus/DuranI to that as well.

I would say Fenech/NelsonII was suprisingly one sided

I see where you are comming from with Breland/StarlingI

Holmes/SpinksI? Holmes was getting old and the Jinx was mighty hot...

I did not add Holyfield/TysonI as some as picked that 24/1 shot:hey

Overall though an excellent list.

 

In boxing there is no such thing as an "unlucky break"....it is he who walks out of the ring with the victory.

In this case it was a medium grade welterweight Backus (and nephew of Carmen Basilio), who had the privilege of being the welterweight champion of the world for 6 months due to his victory over Napoles.

His uncle Basilio, watching from ringside, said: "Billy winning the world title is the best thing ever to happen in my life, even better than me winning the world title."

Backus had a final record of 48 wins, 20 losses and 5 draws, with 22 wins by knockout.