Place good money on occurring? What fighters H2H would seriously upset other "better" fighters? Fights like Ross Puritty beating Wladimir, Rahman against Lennox. Tubb's against Bowe. Fights that to the casual fan would be impossible to predict but ones that you'd place good money on occuring due to style making fights and all that.
Interesting topic. I'd take that prime version of Jimmy Young to win a surprise decision over Liston. Too quick and slippery and Young had a terrific right hand counter in there. But this is the Young in 76/77 timeframe. This would be a fantasy matchup. I'd have taken both Tua and Mercer over Tyson late. Especially a guy like Tua that keeps his power throughout the fight & can lose rounds and ramain dangerous. Mercer to a lesser degree but he did have a jab that would've served him well. It would've been interesting to see Tyson absorbing in the 11th round against those guys. The thing with any Tyson fight were those huge odds backing Mike and if you picked the underdogs that beat him, you did very very well. Nazarov w12 DLH. I wanted to see this one and think that left hander that holds those hands up high would've been a big problem for Oscar. Plus, that accuracy Nazarov had and he didn't telegraph much. I think Naz could take away that left hand of Oscar and DLH didn't quite have the experience necessary to break down the southpaw Nazarov that early in his career.
Another one I wanted to happen around 93 or so was Chavez taking on Vince Phillips. Phillips seemed to be a big guy nobody wanted at 140 > he beat Brazier. And if memory serves corrcet, Chavez was facing the likes of Jakubowski and Haugen and guys like that. I think that long wingspan of Phillips and that big right hand would've been a big problem for Chavez at that time. I thought whenever he got tagged, Chavez slowed down his attack on the outside and became a little too patient in there. And I just don't think Phillips would've been all that easy to force to the ropes and wouldn't have had to absorb all those body shots. Phillips threw a lot of punches in there and was a road warrior as well so I think he could've handled the pressure of a big bout and prospect of taking on a house fighter. At any rate, I thought it would've been interesting to see Chavez having to break down a guy like that to get the win.
I rarely bet but I had money on Rahman over Lewis. Not training plus altitude ain't a winning combination.
Maybe Michaelewski (spelling???) over Jones at LHW. Though I think Roy would've handled him with ease, it's the kind of response I think this thread is looking for.
This fight was an odd upset James Smith TKO 1 Tim Witherspoon for the WBA heavyweight title. [yt]5rN8jL3ylPU[/yt] I heard rumors he threw the fight, I don't know but it was a pretty big upset ath the time. Oh well, my gramps bet on Smith and got lucky.
Darius was too "static" to beat Jones in my opinion. Just not versatile enough to do what needed to be done against Jones. His chin wasn't undentable, and he wasn't particularly fast on his feet from everything I've seen.
Not very odd at all. Smith had massive, massive one shot KO power and Witherpsoon came in fat and unmotivated.
You are using hindsight, at the time it was very much an odd upset. Whitherspoon had handily beaten Smith the previous year, and although Bonecrusher was a late replacement, it still should have been a straightforward victory to Terrible Tim.
Its only an upset if both fighters come in close to optimum. If the overdog dosnt then he neednt wonder at the result. The underdog has nothing to loose by trying every possible trick of aplication and strategy to win, or of inventing a few more.
Then I guess that bloke who won on the 38-1 odds on Douglas over Tyson needs to payback his money, ditto anyone who won with Spinks over Ali..... Whitherspoon was coming off arguably his best win, Smith after a little run of form, was back in journeyman mode. I understand what you are saying, but there is always going to have be an under-performance or over-performance for an upset to happen, very often both, but an upset is an upset no matter what of the three scenarios occurs IMO.
It sure was a big upset at the time tho. Even today, Witherspoon is still held in high regards. Smith wasn't back then and hasn't stood the test of time all that well either. By far, the best win of his career but nobody was figuring on Smith to be defending that title very long. Even if there wasn't a young Tyson to have to deal with, Smith was not a guy that was going to make many title defenses & matchmaking was not going to be easy.
