How big of an upset was Chavez-Randall I?

Pretty big win since Chavez wasn't even beaten by Pernell a few months before. Randall had that nice straight right and he beat a pretty decent Chavez. Great win.

 

Yea it was a pretty big upset. They showed a Randall HL b4 the fight. Randall was basically a guy who got beaten early in his career when he stepped up. but was on a good run beating plenty of journey men although nobody of note.

 

the talk was 'this is his big shot!'

 

Of course. If anything Chavez got lucky that the ref stopped the Taylor 1 fight and that Pea didn't get the decision he deserved. Second fight should've gone to Randall as well because Chavez pretty much quit.

 

Yes.

 

I dont know, those who watched Randall knew he had a shot. It wasnt like people were scared for his life, like they were with Holyfield.

 

That's what I thought. But the guy was a 15-1 underdog going in against a Don King meal ticket & it's hardly an easy job to come out with a W under those conditions. But I thought Randall stylewise was going to be a problem because he held those hands up and threw combos and moved well. I figured at a minimum he'd put in a competitive fight which is a lot different than many of those Chavez opponents at the time brought to the table.

The funny thing was, Randall was even a big underdog in their 2nd fight.

 

Yeah maybe thats why the odds were so high, I mean Douglas was what just barely ahead of Tyson on the cards in Japan? Don King was such a blatant cheat, but going back to Randall, he was a good fighter that just stayed under the radar because of his personal problems. That knockdown late sealed the win for him.

 

Chavez was starting to slide, so yeah it was a shock, but not upset of the century type proportions.

 

But Randall was hardly an unknown commodity to anyone following the sport. He was a known guy from his amateur days. He always had a top notch boxing pedigree. I guess the big thing was that surprise devastating ko loss to Ramos. It sure surprised me. Lots of times you can jump to conclusions and think of results and styles. So you'd assume--and lots of folks did this exactly at the time--if Ramos starches the guy the first time he connected clean, he'll go out against Chavez once he gets tagged.