Who would you consider the Buster Douglas of MMA?

Gabriel Gonzaga.

Solid, but unheralded career before the fight. Immediately becomes the focus of all fans after a devastating KO win. Loses next fight and is never thought about ever again.
 
why would you start a thread when there is one answer so obvious that everyone in the world thinks of the same answer instantly?
 
There is an obvious answer to this question for me, and amazingly, no one in this topic has said it.

Maurice Smith.

Smith defeating Mark Coleman is by far the biggest upset in MMA history. Serra-GSP doesn't even come close.

Mark Coleman was seen as unbeatable. He was 6-0, had obliterated his only serious competition in Don Frye AND Dan Severn, and was this insanely powerful wrestler who would just bludgeon opponents with ground-and-pound, including his lethal headbutts. (Legal back then)

Meanwhile, Maurice Smith was a washed-up kickboxer with a LOSING record of 3-7, including a pathetic 1-6 in Pancrase. He had been dominated by much smaller, inferior grapplers than Coleman (Tamura, Ken Shamrock, Suzuki) and even a smaller, fellow striker in Bas Rutten. His best victory until then had been his last fight, a knockout of Kazunori Murakami, a mediocre grappler who would have been decimated by Coleman victims Frye and Severn, nevermind Coleman himself.

Keep in mind that a striker had NEVER beaten a half-decent grappler at this point in UFC history. And the idea that a guy as mediocre as Smith would defeat the unbeaten golden god Coleman?!

Utter insanity.
 
Serra in retrospect, although at the time GSP was not yet ensconced as the greatest WW of all time.
 
The Chris was the betting favourite in both bouts. Sherdog just wasn't wise to what was about to happen.
Forget about the fact that The Chris has the 2nd most MW title defenses in the history of MMA.
Not to mention he was undefeated in MMA when he fought Silva. Actually no one training with Weidman at the time was surprised that he beat Silva. Pre-USADA, Pre-Rockhold Weidman was unstoppable.
 
There is no perfect correlation, which is why Buster's career was so interesting and unique. Everyone is mentioning major upsets, but that's not the real story. It's not difficult to find upsets. The foundation of Buster's story is that he was a guy who had great potential but could never get his mind right to actually fulfill that potential. He was a massive underachiever. But for one night, inspired by the death of his mother, he fought to his full potential and beat the unbeatable. And the fame then went to his head and he went back to being a massive underachiever.

This isn't a situation like Serra, where he landed one big shot. And while people like Weidman and Holm pulled off major upsets, they weren't classic underachievers like Buster.
 
The closest thing to Myke Tyson in MMA would be Cris Cyborg. So Nunez would not be a bad choice. GSP at that time was not half as scary as the iron Mike.

Specially if she starts losing from now on.
 
Odds wise yeah. Serra, Holly or Werdum but pre and post career wise as well I think Serra has to be the correct answer and draws the most parallels.


Werdum is ped cheat, doesn't belong on lists anymore
 
Werdum is ped cheat, doesn't belong on lists anymore
Serra's never popped for anything?

Wasn't there wide spread speculation about Holly and her clit boner at one point as well?

Anyways, steroids have nothing to do with the question at hand or my answer based on the odds of a fight he never failed a drug test for and also made me very sad at the same time, lol.
 
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Fickett
 
Joe Rogan, because all he does is talk about Buster Douglas vs Mike Tyson
 
Forrest Griffin. Rampage had just KO'd Liddell for the LHW title and unified the Pride and UFC LHW titles by beating Henderson. He looked unbeatable. Then Forrest comes out of nowhere with his shocking finish of Shogun and takes the title.
 
Took way too long for her to come up imo. Kudos
holly holm and buster douglas are not comparable ..... buster was a unknown nobody that came out of nowhere and beat the world's most devestating fighter at the time and then got KO'd by holyfield disappeared back into obscurity ballooning up to 400 lbs and almost dying in a diabetic coma

holm on the other hand was a former world boxing champ, so not unknown, and after deafeating ronda, she did not disappear into obscurity ....quite to opposite, she's fighting the world champ nunes for the belt in about a month

basically the OP is looking for someone that was unknown, came out of nowhere to KO a ufc champ winning the belt, and losing it in the next fight and then disappearing to the minor leagues to fight no one significant again
 
To make the analogy complete, it really has to be Serra. Buster Douglas came from out of nowhere and beat the undisputed champ/best HW of that era...then immediately vanished from the HW scene. Kind of like Serra.

Jarl
 
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