Buster Douglas was a 42:1 underdog against Tyson. That means his projected chance of beating Tyson going into the fight was 1/43, or 2.3%. Before that fight, Mike Tyson had participated in and won 10 championship fights. In order for those ten straight fights to have ended in a Tyson victory as the most probable outcome (51%) Tyson would've had to have had a 93.5% chance of beating any of his previous opponents on fight night. .935^10=.51 (This is assuming his chance of winning any of those 10 fights was the same to keep the math simple.) For a fighter to rattle off 20 straight title wins as the most probable result (51%), assuming an equal chance of beating any given opponent, the fighter would have to be a 96.7% favorite over any given opponent. .967^20=.51 My point is that boxers with winning streaks in title fights like Louis, Calzaghe, Hopkins, and Mayweather must have actually been enormous favorites over most of their opponents in order to get there without extra luck, and that's why it's so rare to find a 20 defense unbeaten streak by a champion.
I don't think their winning streaks would have been viewed as the most probable results beforehand though. But it shows you how improbable it is that any of them would be able to replicate such a feat (like in the hypothetical matchups where Joe Louis fights all of Evander Holyfield's opponents). And it goes to a point I've made before about how boxing fans seriously underestimate the role of chance/luck.
One of the things I take from it is that the one hit wonder types and guys who looked great for a year or two were rarely on the same level as the guys who would win fight after fight, even when they were peaking (i.e. Judah, Lacy, Fernando Vargas).
How so? The statistics demonstrate how improbable it is to win 10-20 times in a row but I don't understand how they can tell us what level these guys were on during their respective peaks.
Winning is only partially luck. Shane Mosley looked as good as any fighter ever for a couple years, but he'd have no chance of a really long reign unless he fought complete bums because he wasn't good enough. It's like how certain pro poker players win or reach the final tables of tournaments compared to ams despite having much more luck at stake than a pro boxer.
Sure, skill is obviously far more important than luck over the course of a fighter's career. But luck/chance/idiosyncratic things-unrelated-to-a fighter's-abilities have the potential to play a huge role in any given fight. I mean, the difference between a knockout blow and a swing-and-a-whiff can be inches, or hundredths of a second of reaction time. Or instinctively weaving to your left instead of your right. Or throwing your punch a tenth of a second sooner or later. Or being distracted by personal problems outside the ring, or stomach problems or a broken finger, etc. None of these things are what we think of as luck, but they also aren't a direct reflection of a fighter's abilities.
