what where the 10 greatest upsets in boxing history?

Johnson didnt lose his title to a 7-0 novice. Outside of Fitz, and Ali, no other heavyweight champ lost there crown to a 7-0 novice. (And Jeff was 12-0)

 

Tyson Holyfield was an upset no matter what way you try to slice it.

Tyson Douglas IMO should rank #1 in terms of biggest upsets.

 

Holyfield was a 25-1 underdog in the first bout.

 

So what? This has nothing to do with Johnson, Fitz, Jeffries or anyone else. The fact is, Ali was well past his prime, and quite possibly entering the early stages of a very disabling illness. What's more, he was facing a young olympian, who had just beaten a few good contenders, and who had everything in the world to prove. Also, Ali managed to regain the title in the rematch. How many times did Louis, Marciano, Johnson, Jeffries or Fitszimmons reagain their belts?

 

Marciano didnt need to regain the title.

The others failed in title fights. But Ali also failed to regain the title vs Frazier and Holmes. Louis, Jeff, had 1 chance to do it. Johnson never got other shot when he lost it, Ali got plenty of chances to do it in his case.

 

Good list but you forgot two of the biggest upsets - Tyson Douglas and Tyson-Holyfield I.

 

No world class fighter should ever be a 25-1 underdog.

Douglas should have been a 10-1 underdog going into the Tyson fight.

Hollyfield should have been 3-1 in the first fight.

 

Perhaps in hindsight it should not be seen as such a huge upset.

Louis was still in his second year as a profesional fighter and had been inactive for the last six months. Schmeling was also a much greater threat stylisticaly than either Carnera or Baer.

Again in hindsight the odds should perhaps have been set at about 3-1 against Schmeling rather than 10-1.

 

Randy Turpin over Sugar Ray Robinson
Jersey Joe Walcott Over Ezzard Charles

 

Oh Yes, Chu Chu Castillo mus of been a big underdog when upsetting the (as Then) undefeated Ruben Olivares.

 

Of course he didn't. He retired at the end of a rather weak era, and at fairly young age at that. What's more, he rejected offers to come out of retirement when the division once again began to flood with talent.

These are not valid criticisms on your part.
Ali was 38 years old and hadn't fought in two years against a prime Holmes, who was well underway to being an all time great himself. Plus Ali had already by that point acheived the feat of becoming a 3 time champ which is something no other fighter had previously done. Joe Frazier defeated Ali, but only after Muhammad had returned from a near 4 year layoff with only 2 tunup bouts. Once he got his fight game back, he beat Frazier twice and regained the crown by dusting Foreman who destroyed Frazier.

You're not really going to attempt to argue that Jack Johnson was even in Ali's league are you?

[/quote]

And during the most competitive era in the sport, of which he was successful in most of his attemps.

 

The thing is if Ali just got 1 shot, he would have been in the long line of guys that failed to regain the title. Louis didnt get 3 or so chances to regain the title, Nor did Jack Johnson or Jeff. The thing is Ali was able to regain the title because he got more than 1 mere chance in regaining the belt.

For the record, Johnson is in Ali's league.

 

What good contenders? Spinks had never fought a top ten man prior to defeating Ali. In his whole career, Spinks never defeated a top five fighter except for Ali and only 2 top ten fighters, Evangelista and Mercado, who were nothing special.

 

I was trying to confine the list to ten upsets. The only matches of Tyson's I'd viewed at the time of the Douglas fight were against Quick Tillis, Blood Green, Bonecrusher Smith, and Tony Tucker. In those 44 combined rounds of action, I saw Mike score exactly one inconsequential flash knockdown, against Tillis. Then, Greg Page dropped Tyson in sparring for the Douglas match. I was actually more surprised that Smith did not knock out Tyson before Douglas did. Douglas had beaten Cobb, Page, Berbick and McCall, so I figured it was possible he could decision Tyson. I will admit though, that I didn't expect him to kayo Mike as he did.

Holyfield had 14 wins over 13 world title claimants, including seven HW title claimants, and also secured his 15 round championship pedigree in the first Qawi matchup. By the time Holyfield had his first match with Tyson, I had watched two more of Mike's fights; the kayo loss to Douglas, and his 12 round decision win in the rematch with Ruddock. So in 66 total rounds of action, I saw Tyson get knocked out, and score a grand total of four knockdowns. Consider that first impressions are lasting impressions, and obviously the first impression Tyson made on me was, "What's all the fuss about?"

I didn't view any of Tyson's knockout victories until just this year, on internet services like youtube, but by then it was too late for Tyson to make a favorable impression on me as a top tier ATG.

So perhaps you can understand from my personal perspective why I didn't consider the outcome of Douglas/Tyson to be a monumental upset, although an upset nonetheless. And after seeing Tyson fail to knock out five opponents, and get knocked out himself by a sixth, I sort of expected Holyfield to prevail. (I'm also confident that Holyfield would have prevailed had they met before Tyson was incarcerated.)

Make no mistake about it, I was very mindful of those two matches when compiling my list, but I simply didn't think those upsets were of the magnitude necessary for me to include them in my top ten. Again, this is merely my subjective opinion, and I wouldn't expect or desire anybody to agree with it completely.