No, not upsets like Buster Douglas over Mike Tyson or even Leon Spinks over Muhammad Ali. I’m looking for real head-scratchers here. What do I mean? I mean 230-pound Iran Barkley dropping 250-something Gerrie Coetzee … in 1997. If you’d have told me 12 years before that this was going to happen, I could have had you committed (and the judge wouldn’t think twice about whether you had completely lost your grip on reality). What else fits this mold?
If you’d told me in ‘74, when Foreman lost to Ali, he’d get his title back……. In 20 years. I’d ask for the name of your dealer.
In the early 90s, James Toney was IBF middleweight champ and Evander Holyfield was undisputed heavyweight champ. No one in their right mind would have thought that in 2003 Toney would be a heavyweight let alone that he’d beat Holyfield at that weight.
Not alive during the period but how do you tell someone from 88' that 37yo, almost 38yo former lightweight Roberto Durán would not only survive but also beat hard hitting middleweight Iran Barkley who had previously stopped the demise of Durán in Thomas Hearns, all without sounding like a schizophrenic?
That one was next on my list. At the time that was the biggest gap between first and last world titles (17 years) before Foreman beat Moorer. Also, Barkley was a career middleweight who would win world title a light heavyweight and then go up to heavyweight as Saintpat has already mentioned, plus he was 6 ft and Duran was 5’7. The actual size difference between them was huge.
In 1950, future light heavyweight champ Archie Moore knocked out another future light heavyweight champ Harold Johnson in the third round Fourteen years earlier, in 1936, Moore had knocked out Harold’s father, Phil Johnson, also in the third round.
I wonder if anyone had 52-year-old Larry Holmes W10 Butterbean on their bingo card. Or Pat Lawlor beating Roberto Duran and Wilfred Benitez back-to-back … in 1991, no less.
Rodrigo Valdez and Bennie Briacoe fought three times - Valdez winning the first and third fights by decision. In their second fight, Valdez knocked Briacoe down and stopped him in the 7th round. Briacoe was never knocked down let alone knocked out before or after that fight and not by Valdez either. Who knows where that punch came from? And, in a similar vein, a 1st round kayo by Michael Nunn over Sumbu Kalambay was a result no-one predicted.
Two pals chatting in 2018 X1: That Crawford guy is very good, he just unified the lightweight belts and knocked out Indongo! X2: Yeah i reckon he'll beat Canelo X1: Excuse me!!?
Jimmy Ellis went 1-3 in 1964 fighting at middleweight. I kind of doubt anyone would have picked him as Ali's successor as heavyweight champion.
OR, would you believe <shout out to Maxwell Smart> that two different HW Champs in very recent times would accommodate challenges from a boxing debutant and one near enough to same, with one of those Champs actually putting his belts on the line? AND, worse still, both Champs actually ended up struggling badly with their woefully inexperienced challengers? I mean, jeeze, at least Rocky Balboa had 64 pro boxing fights under his belt when Apollo Creed randomly picked him out and then nearly got done by him.
Try convincing old timers from 40s and 50s that one day a fighter will come along and be world champion in just his third pro fight. Did anyone in the mid 90’s predict Jones Jr would be heavyweight champion one day?
