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Biggest upsets

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by TyWebb, Jul 15, 2007.

  1. chazp

    chazp Active Member

    One more. Clay over Liston, who at the time was considered invincible.
     
  2. spnited

    spnited Active Member

    August 4, 1973 ... Onion beat Secretariat in the Whitney Stakes at Saratoga in Big Red's first start since the incredible Belmont romp two months earlier
     
  3. TyWebb

    TyWebb Well-Known Member

    Was thinking a bout that one, but I figured that people didn't know enough about Clay at the time. True, Liston was the man back then, but Clay was on his way up and was better than Liston before and after that fight.

    If you compare that fight with Douglas/Tyson, Douglas never went anywhere after that fight, and Tyson probably would have beaten him 9 times out of 10. Clay, I think, would have beaten Liston 9 times out of 10 back then, so I didn't consider it a great upset in hindsight.
     
  4. broadway joe

    broadway joe Guest

    Jets over Colts in '69 might not top those two, but it should be right there alongside them. I'd say the others that have been mentioned are all at least a notch below.
     
  5. Simon_Cowbell

    Simon_Cowbell Active Member

    I disagree.

    The line was driven by wise-guy money.

    No one had any idea how good the AFL was, just disrespected it.

    They won SB III... then IV... and then V.

    I don't think it is in the same ballpark.
     
  6. chazp

    chazp Active Member

    Forgot another one, Notre Dame stopping UCLA's 88-game winning streak.
     
  7. broadway joe

    broadway joe Guest

    Aren't most lines driven by wise-guy money? Forget it, don't answer that. I don't want to get into a debate about it.

    I put SB III up there because of how overwhelming an underdog the Jets were -- much more so than, say, the Reds vs. the A's in the 1990 WS -- and because of the significance of the game in that it was the first real blow to the superiority of the NFL. Very few upsets can match it in terms of both shock value and historical significance. Maybe one or the other, but not both.
     
  8. Mystery_Meat

    Mystery_Meat Guest

    Not for consideration for No. 1, but at least worthy of an others receiving votes spot: Harvard women's basketball over Stanford in the first round of the NCAAs a few years back. Only 16 over a 1.
     
  9. zeke12

    zeke12 Guest

    Just so someone has come out and said it:

    The 1980 U.S. over U.S.S.R upset is far and away the greatest of all time. Everything else is fighting for second.
     
  10. sportschick

    sportschick Active Member

    But Stanford had lost 2 (or maybe 3) of its top players after the seedings were announced. It was almost expected that they'd lose.
     
  11. bigbadeagle

    bigbadeagle Member

    Beyond U.S. 4, USSR 3 (no more calls, we have a winner).

    Harvard 29, Yale 29.
    Patriots over Rams in the Super Bowl.
    Boris Becker's first Wimbledon title. Came out of nowhere, no?
    How bout Cardinals over Tigers in last year's World Series?
    Cleveland State and Kevin Mackey over Indiana in the NCAAs.
    And one of my favorites - Princeton over UCLA, with Jim Harrick responding to the question "Were you outcoached?" with "I don't believe you're qualified to ask that."
     
  12. Mystery_Meat

    Mystery_Meat Guest

    If I didn't think I'd ever have to deal with that guy again, I so would have responded "well, are you qualified to answer?"
     
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