Francis Ngannou will attempt to pull off the unthinkable as he transitions from the Octagon to a boxing ring to challenge WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
The former UFC heavyweight champion has long yearned to test his hand in the sweet science but his boxing debut will be against the man widely recognized as the best heavyweight of this generation. It’s a tall task for Ngannou but he’ll attempt to pull off one of the biggest upsets in boxing history on October 28.
But as shocking as an Ngannou win would be in boxing, just how highly would it rank against the biggest upsets in sports history? Let's take a closer look at the five biggest and then gauge where Ngannou beating Fury would rank.
WATCH: Tyson Fury vs. Francis Ngannou live, exclusively on ESPN+
Appalachian State takes out Michigan (Sep. 1, 2007)
In a sport filled with utterly lopsided scores, the No.5-ranked Michigan Wolverines were expected to annihilate the unranked Appalachian State Mountaineers by roughly four touchdowns.
Michigan entered the season as the favorite to win the Big Ten conference and challenge for the national championship. Appalachian State was expected to provide little resistance. So little that Las Vegas sports books did not offer a betting line due to the massive mismatch this was expected to be on paper.
On paper.
After racing out to a stunning 28-17 halftime lead, many expected the Wolverines to show up in the second half and pull out the victory. Michigan managed to make a comeback and take a 32-31 lead in the fourth quarter. But the Mountaineers nailed a short field goal to take a 34-32 lead with 26 seconds left.
A 46-yard pass from Chad Henne to Mario Manningham put the Wolverines in field goal range. But instead of writing off the game as a close call, Appalachian State blocked the game-winning field goal and secured what remains as the biggest upset in college football history.
Fairleigh Dickinson def. Purdue in NCAA tournament (Mar. 17, 2023)
Usually, the first round of the NCAA tournament game is viewed as a bye for each of the No.1 seeds. But that idea came crashing down when the top-seeded Purdue Boilermakers lost stunningly to Fairleigh Dickinson.
The worst part about this upset is that Fairleigh Dickenson only made the NCAA tournament on a technicality when the best team in their conference (Merrimack) wasn’t eligible for postseason play. Not to mention that FDU was the smallest team in Division I facing the tallest, led by Purdue’s giant 7’4” center Zach Edey.
The Boilermakers were 23.5-point favorites but David didn’t need a handicap to upset Goliath with the final score of 63-58.
A team with an overall record of 21-16 and hadn’t come close to beating a top-25 team ended up taking out one of the favorites to win the NCAA championship. Just, wow.
New York Giants derailing the New England Patriots perfect season at Super Bowl XLII (Feb. 3, 2008)
Tom Brady and the New England Patriots rolled through the regular season and were already deemed as the greatest team in NFL history. They set records at the time for most points scored (589), 75 total touchdowns, and an absurd net differential of +315.
After they blew through the playoffs, they met a New York Giants team that finished the regular season with a 10-6 record and made the playoffs as a Wild Card.
The Patriots entered the game as 12-point favorites to complete their historic season and went home losers after Eli Manning engineered a phenomenal comeback drive — highlighted by David Tyree’s famed “helmet catch” — that ended with a touchdown pass to Plaxico Burress to give the Giants the 17-14 win.
It proved that nothing is a foregone conclusion in sports.
MORE: How Fury-Ngannou is this generation's Ali-Inoki
Buster Douglas knocking out Mike Tyson (Feb. 11, 1990)
Mike Tyson wasn’t just undefeated, he was perceived to be indestructible heading into his fight with James “Buster” Douglas. The heavyweight champion was riding a string of six consecutive knockouts and had come off of a first-round obliteration of Carl Williams.
Douglas wasn’t thought of as much more than a speed bump for Tyson’s devastating road to greatness. He had four losses on his resume and was knocked out by Tony Tucker three years before this fight.
This was thought to just be a tune-up fight for Tyson’s highly anticipated showdown with Evander Holyfield and the eyebrow-raising 42-to-1 odds were indicative of just how much of a longshot Douglas was.
And then the fight happened. A woefully underprepared Tyson was outgunned by Douglas, who survived an eighth-round knockdown to roar back and finish Tyson in the 10th.
The Miracle on Ice (Feb. 22, 1980)
The 1980 Soviet Union Olympic hockey team was a powerhouse that everyone assumed would steamroll their way to Olympic gold. Team U.S.A. was made up of a bunch of scrappy kids who were thought to have absolutely no chance of challenging the Soviets.
In front of a then-record 36 million American households that tuned in, Team U.S.A. pulled off the unthinkable with legendary play-by-play announcer Al Michaels delivering perhaps the most famous call in the history of American sports: “Do you believe in miracles? Yes!”
With The Cold War serving as the backdrop, the remarkable upset ended up having global and political significance on one of the grandest stages in sports history.
Would Ngannou beating Fury be the biggest upset in sports?
The difference between every other upset on this list and Ngannou beating Fury is that the other upsets were at least against opponents who had a history of competing in the same sport. Francis Ngannou has never competed as a boxer and he's facing a man who is the reigning and defending heavyweight champion who has never tasted defeat.
That would make Francis Ngannou beating Tyson Fury the biggest upset in the history of sports.
Even though Team U.S.A. was filled with scrappy college kids, they had a history of playing together. Ngannou has never boxed and is entering a new world in the harshest way imaginable. Some will say that MMA and boxing have similarities but we have seen how wide the gap is between a world-class boxer and an MMA fighter.
After a career of beating boxing's best, Fury being upended by a novice would certainly cement itself as the biggest upset of them all.
And it's not even close.