One Of The Most Incredible Upsets In Sports History Happened Saturday Night

We usually stick to basketball and football for the most part but every so often something happens elsewhere that’s so remarkable that we have to remark.

So it is with last night’s heavyweight fight between the undisputed champion Anthony Joshua and challenger Andy Ruiz, Jr.

This was amazing in more ways than one.

First, Ruiz was a late fill-in for another boxer who failed medical tests. Second, he doesn’t look like a boxer. He doesn’t look like an athlete really. After the fight, an ESPN commentator said you might as well throw 100 years of conditioning science out the window.

People were apparently mocking Ruiz for his somewhat doughy body in the run-up to the fight.

Well no more.

He won and it wasn’t by a lucky knockout. This guy knocked the champ down four separate times.

The odds against him winning were something like 2,500 to one. This was one of the great upsets in athletic history, akin to Buster Douglas over Mike Tyson, Villanova over Georgetown and the Jets over the Colts in Joe Namath’s Super Bowl.

We know boxing isn’t as well regarded as it used to be but what happened Saturday night was a triumph of the human spirit. If you’re inclined to watch boxing you should definitely see what happened here. It’s like watching some guy walk in off the street and taking down the world champ.

He’s not - Ruiz is a very good boxer and if you watch you’ll see at the end that despite the jokes about his body and conditioning, he’s still spry and bouncy.

By the way, can you imagine the people who bet on the long shot here? What a night all round.