Biggest upsets in the original 8 weight divisions?

For flyweight, Vic Darchinyan was -700 going into his fight with Donaire. People forget that.

 

Some of the fights listed really did not have a big gap gambling wise. Like say Hearns-Barkley which was 4-1. Not 15-1 like the chavez/randall #1 fight.

Lots of folks were taking Leonard over Hagler and that was under 4-1 by fighttime.

Honeyghan--Curry was 6-1 and I didn't know anyone going with the underdog in that one.

I don't recall Bramble--Mancini 1, but I do recall folks picking Bramble. But folks were always picking against Ray and figured he wouldn't last long.

Rossman--Galindez is a good one. Odds weren't that bad but nobody was really backing Mike to win it. He might hang tough but everyone picked Victor and was on par with the amount of folks picking Johnson over Jones.

Odds are a good way to get a pulse of things going into a fight instead of the hindsight so commonly used afterwards.

Another one not mentioned is Lennox Lewis at 13-1 over Rahman. Ouch. And with Hasim cut, that looked like that may have been favorable until that picture perfect right hand landed.

 

Biggest upset I've seen is still Leon Spinks over Ali. bigger than Tyson/Douglas. Imagine Mike losing his title to a guy with 7 fights.

Nobody was picking Leon. And anyone seeing him in there with Ledoux and Righetti thought he had much of a chance in a 15 rounder. Not with the way the judges loved Ali on scorecards. Everyone thought you pretty much had to stop Ali to get a decision and Leon wasn't stopping the guy.

But he sure showed up and looked good, didn't he?

 

Sanchez stopped him.

 

Not even close as the biggest upset. The Ali-Spinks odds were 8-1. Tyson-Douglas was 42-1.
We might have our personal opinions, but the odds tell it all.

 

Heavyweight: Douglas-Tyson
Light Heavyweight:
Middleweight: Turpin-Robinson I (HM to McCoy-Chip)
Welterweight: Curry-Honeyghan
Lightweight: Singer-Mandell
Featherweight: Corbett-McGovern
Bantamweight: Sandoval-Chandler (though Lujan-Zamora is pretty close)
Flyweight: Park-Canto

 

I think Park was just about the most touted amateur ever in South Korea at that time. Might seem bizzare that he did a job on Canto, but knowing how talented he was I don't see it as that big an upset, especially considering that Canto had been made to look a bit past it by the Thai fella.

All hindsight of course--and using materials at hand that most didn't have back then.

Are there any contemporary sources that say it was a huge shock?

 

At bantam Harada over Jofre, Rose over Harada and Pintor over Zarate were all upsets.