What heavyweight title win is / was the most SHOCKING?

Those are reasons why it happened. It doesn't make it any less surprising.

 

out of the list the foreman win. who saw that coming?

 

At the time no, but 20 years of hindsight may dull the sensation.

And as I am painfully being made aware, some posters only have hindsight, as they were not old enough to experience the fight!

 

The destruction and manner in which he won was shocking. But a lot of people at that time were going with George to pull off the upset. He was a very live underdog and no darkhorse without a chance in there.

Norton had the same odds in his fight against Foreman right afterwards and an awful lot of people were picking Kenny in that fight as well.

 

Bentt-Morrison was just insane

 

Good call.

Tommy's stock sure dropped after that one, didn't it?

Nobody was picking Bentt in that one and it was in Morrison's backyard.

 

Tyson-Douglas is the king of all upsets 42-1 come on

Baer-Braddock is second on my list

Morrison-Bentt and Lewis-Rahman 1 are good shouts

I know my dad thought Liston and Foreman were going to kill Ali literally so they'd have to figure highly

 

Floyd Patterson ko 5 Ingemar Johansson 1960. Since no one had ever regained the heavyweight title before and since Floyd had been destroyed in such an emphatic manner in the year previous.

 

The undisputed top two are Baer-Braddock and Tyson-Douglas. None of the others mentioned on this thread even come close.

They don't call Braddock the Cinderella Man for nothing. Sure Braddock had 44 wins coming into that fight, and he was on a five fight win streak. But let's face it, the guy had lost 23 times. And the guys he beat on that win streak weren't great heavyweights. Lewis was a light heavy, only weighing 176 for their bout, and Braddock had a prior loss to Lewis. Griffin was unproven and only 22-6. Les Kennedy was only 43-17, having 11 losses in the two years leading up to the Braddock decision loss, and two of Kennedy's losses were LKOby3 to Baer and Carnera. Lasky had lost a newspaper decision to Carnera, lost a decision to Hamas, and drew with Levinsky before the Braddock fight, and Baer was coming off a KO win over Levinksy. From July 1929 to May 1933, Braddock lost 20 times, so that puts a mere five fight win streak from June 33 to March 35, over only decent, not top heavies, into perspective. Plus, Braddock had primarily been a light heavy, and generally weighed around 180 even as a heavy, weighing 182 1/4 in his last fight prior to Baer. So now he's going up against a strong rock solid 210-pound puncher in Baer who knocked the living crap out of better guys than Braddock.

The 210-pound Baer had not lost since mid 1931, having gone undefeated for four years, including KOs of Max Schmeling and Primo Carnera, as well as victories over Johnny Risko, Tom Heeney, Tuffy Griffiths, and Ernie Schaaf. King Levinsky, whom Baer KO'd in 2 rounds in his fight prior to Braddock, had just as good a record as Braddock - 53-23-5. Braddock was 44-23-4. The rest arguably had superior records and results to Braddock, or certainly no worse. Max was 41-7. He had the better record, over far superior opponents, overall more impressive results, longer win streak, and was bigger and stronger than Braddock. This was just supposed to be another payday for Baer.

Mike Tyson was a 37-0 with 33 KO killer who blew threw guys much better than Douglas. Buster Douglas had been KO'd by David Bey and Mike White. He could only manage a draw with Steffen Tangstad, a guy Spinks blew through, and we all know what Tyson did with Spinks. He lost a decision to Jesse Ferguson, a guy Tyson had pounded on and stopped in 6 rounds. He won a decision over Dave Jaco, a guy Tyson stopped in 1 round. Tony Tucker stopped Douglas in 10, and Tucker lost a decision in his next bout to Tyson. So what had Douglas done to make one think he had a chance against Tyson? He was on a six-fight win streak, but against nobodies, other than the final two wins. He won a decision over a past-it Berbick, a guy whom Tyson blew through in 2 rounds. He won a decision over McCall, a guy with a punch and a chin, probably Douglas' best win, but McCall was only 14-2 at that point. Sure Douglas had shown himself to be at least a solid boxer with some speed and skill, but Tyson usually blew threw mere solid, and Douglas had mixed results, and had far inferior results with common opponents and other fighters Tyson had defeated.

Tyson had victories over Berbick, Smith, Thomas, Tucker, Holmes, Tubbs, and Spinks, all former champions with superior resumes to Douglas at the time Tyson beat them, as well as Biggs, a former gold medalist, and Bruno, a huge puncher, and Carl Williams, a fast and skilled boxer who nearly beat Holmes once and had victories over Ferguson and Berbick.

All of the other fights mentioned on this thread at least had some semblance of an aura of danger for the champ because either the challenger was undefeated, or a former champion, or presented a potentially difficult style matchup or physical test.

 

This is a very reasonable call considering:good

 

:goodfloyd electrified the world with a bang.

 

Agreed. You'd swear the fight was fixed if Tommy wasn't so clearly dazed after that punch.

 

Tyson - Douglas will always be the most shocking to me.
Yes the cracks were starting to show before it, but the initial amazement of Tyson getting hammered like that is a vivid memory.