What are some good examples of a smaller heavyweight beating a larger opponent?

Question

Some that come to mind for me are Dempsey over Willard and Firpo and Louis over Simon and B. Baer.

Answer 1

There are so many but I recently watched Cooney-Spinks.  There's Chris Byrd's win over Vitaly Klitschko.  

Everyone who beat Jamil McCline.  I've never seen a boxer who is so big with no heart.  He could sneeze and knock Chris Byrd out of the ring yet he was afraid to throw punches.    I thought he was gonna pee his pants when he fought Wladimir Klitschko.   He's 6'6" 260lbs.  I know size isn't everything but at least TRY to use your advantage.  

People tend to revere Dempsey as if he's some sort of god.  What people tend to forget is that the rules were different in his day.  Granted the advantage he held over many of his opponents could very well have gone the other way.  

The biggest misconception is when people compare Dempsey's KO ratio to that of later day champions.   What they forget is the fact that he did not have the 8 count to contend with.  Forman's KO % might well be something like .99999 if he were allowed to stand over a fallen opponent as Dempsey was.   Im sure Jack's would not be so high if there was a standing 8 count.

Answer 2

Thats all Mike Tyson did was beat up big overgrown heavyweights. Tyson-Ruddock 1 and 2, Tyson-Berbick,Tyson-Smith, Tyson-Bruno...allot of Tysons fights were against bigger opponents seeing as how Tyson was 5'10. Untill later he started saying he 5'11.

Answer 3

When mike tyson came to existence in boxing world, everyone in heavyweight seems to be an underdog goliath to him..

Answer 4

holyfield - foreman

m baer - carnera

louis - carnera

james corbett - sullivan

leon spinks - muhammad ali

Answer 5

chageav-valuev, spinks-cooney, tyson-bonecrusher smith, ibragimov-briggs, holyfield-bowe 2, ali-frazier 1, byrd-holyfield, byrd-tua, jones jr-ruiz,spinks-holmes

Answer 6

Ruslan Chagaev beating the russian giant Nikolay Valuev

Answer 7

apparently rocky marciano weighed just as much a modern day light-heavy weight

Answer 8

Chris byrd and roy jones come to mind. Since "smaller" heavyweight means just that you can throw in lamon brewster beating Wladimir a couple of years ago into that one. Or how about holyfield(6'0 205) beating bowe(6'5 235) in thier first fight

Answer 9

Sam Langford at most was 5'8" tall.  Size wise he was usually at a disadvantage.  Some of the more taller opponents he knocked out were Harry Wills 6'2", Bill Tate 6'6", and Gunboat Smith 6'2"

Answer 10

It has to be Mike Tyson he is short by any standard and he was a beast. When I think of Mike I just think of what could have been what a wast of talent.

Answer 11

You gave good examples, especially the amazing Jack Dempsey.  

However, the ultimate David versus Goliath would have to be fought against the greatest heavyweight of all time: Joe Lewis.

His David was the comparatively tiny lightweight Billy Conn.

Conn weighed in at only 167 lbs when he first fought Lewis. Still, he soundly beat the "Brown Bomber" for eleven rounds.

Lewis was completely out boxed by Conn in this embarrassing fight that still culminated with Lewis winning by knockout when Conn got overconfident and tried going toe to toe with Lewis (always a mistake).

Lewis made the immortal comment "he can run but he can't hide" refering to Conn. Watch the fight on youtube.

Conn is amazing (until Lewis finally connects).