Rocky Lives!: Heavyweight Boxing Upsets of the 1990s

Boxing fans love the upset, seeing the underdog surprise the heavy favorite and take the fight to him, winning over the fans and—perhaps even more important—the judges. Sylvester Stallone mined that emotion through his long series of Rocky films.

Rocky is fiction, however. The men in Rocky Lives! are real. David E. Finger, a writer for top boxing website FightNews.com, presents chronologically seventy-five heavyweight boxing upsets of the 1990s. Some involve boxers still fighting today; others contain a cautionary tale of once-great boxers chasing one last payday. There are also the early-round disasters of wannabes and athletes who switched to boxing in midstream.

Perhaps the biggest upset of the decade occurred just forty-two days into it, as Buster Douglas drew inspiration from his recently deceased mother to deliver a monumental upset of Mike Tyson, the self-proclaimed—and, at the time, most agreed—"baddest man on the planet." HBO commentator Larry Merchant labeled it "the greatest upset in boxing history." Finger presents this fight and seventy-four others with amazing detail, looking back at the prefight hype and "common sense" perception, describing the fight preparation of each boxer, analyzing the fight itself, and discussing the aftermath. He explains why the upset was so upsetting, and describes the continued careers of both boxers.

From the Tyson-Douglas, Foreman-Moorer, and Lewis-McCall top-dollar fights to low-level curiosities like former New York Jet Mark Gastineau getting embarrassed or Eric "Butterbean" Esch taking to the ring, David Finger presents the best heavyweight upsets the 1990s have to offer. You’ll read about crooked promoters drugging opponents, a convicted felon hoping victory in the ring will win him leniency, and a forty-five-year-old preacher looking to exorcise a two-decade-old demon. Rocky Lives! brings all the knockouts and slugfests right into your home.