Buzz
From the epic clash of David and Goliath to Average Joe’s showdown with the Globo Gym Purple Cobras, underdog tales are universal. Stories of the underdog standing tall against the odds, whether for a prize or survival, strike a deep chord with people worldwide.
10. Kalpana Saroj vs. The Hindu Caste System
Dalits occupy the lowest rank in the Hindu caste hierarchy. Although laws exist to prevent discrimination against these so-called untouchables, they offer limited protection. Men are still denied haircuts, women are prohibited from using public taps, and children face rejection in schools.
The situation was even more dire during Kalpana Saroj’s childhood. She wasn’t allowed to drink from Brahmin wells (the highest caste), and many refused to let her into their homes. Upper-caste children bullied her, and teachers excluded her from school activities. Society treated her as an outcast.
Her circumstances worsened when she married at 12. Her husband, a man ten years older, lived in a slum in Mumbai. He, along with his alcoholic family, abused her. After enduring months of torment, her father rescued her, but the troubles continued. Upon returning to her village, she was shunned for leaving her husband, and the young girl drank poison in an attempt to escape the overwhelming pressure.
Miraculously, Saroj survived and returned to Mumbai to rebuild her life, working as a tailor for less than a dollar a month. Eventually, she secured a $1,000 government loan to start her own furniture and blouse-making business. As her profits grew, she ventured into real estate, buying and selling property and even constructing a shopping mall. When the mob placed a bounty on her head due to her growing influence in the real estate sector, she identified their members and handed them over to the authorities.
As her business flourished, Saroj was called upon to rescue a failing metal engineering company. When she took over Kamani Tubes as chairwoman, the company was in financial ruin. Under her leadership, it became worth over $100 million. Since then, she’s expanded her business portfolio, owning a sugar factory, engaged in remarkable charity work, and become an inspiring mother. She not only funded her daughter’s hotel management studies but also bought her an entire hotel.
9. Lysander Spooner vs. The Postal Service
In the 1840s, the Postal Service wasn’t winning any fans. With steep rates, it upset many, including Lysander Spooner. A trained lawyer, Spooner believed the government was overstepping its bounds by monopolizing the mail system. Though the Constitution grants the government the authority to “establish post offices and post roads,” Spooner disagreed with its exclusive hold on mail services.
Determined to prove his case—and make some profit—Spooner founded his own postal service, the American Letter Mail Company. He immediately started challenging the government, offering stamps for 6.25 cents each, far cheaper than the government’s 12-cent stamp. He opened offices in cities like New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, and in some areas, provided free local delivery. Soon, Spooner was running a more successful business than the government.
The government wasn’t pleased with Spooner’s bold move and tried to shut him down. They threatened to stop sending government mail on trains if railroads transported anything from Spooner’s company. They imposed fines, and the two sides clashed in court. Most notably, they tried to undercut Spooner’s stamp prices, but Spooner responded by lowering his own prices even further.
Unfortunately for Spooner, the government triumphed in 1851 when Congress introduced the ridiculously cheap three-cent stamp. Unable to compete, the American Letter Mail Company shut down. While the underdog didn’t claim victory this time, he certainly made the establishment sweat.
8. Robert Kearns vs. Ford And Chrysler
In the 1960s, while teaching at Wayne State University, Robert Kearns spent his free time inventing various items, including a comb that dispenses hair tonic. However, his most significant invention was the intermittent windshield wiper. Prior to Kearns’ innovation, wipers had only two speeds: one for light rain and one for heavy rain. Kearns created wipers with multiple speeds. It was a simple yet brilliant idea, and he patented it for his exclusive use.
Kearns didn't just want to sell his idea—he aimed to become the exclusive producer of his invention. However, that didn’t happen. Initially, Ford showed interest, but after reviewing his designs, they chose not to move forward with them. In 1969, they introduced their own version of the intermittent wiper, followed by Mercedes and Chrysler shortly thereafter.
Kearns was devastated by this and eventually suffered a mental breakdown. Once he regained his clarity, he declared war on the automobile industry. In 1978, he sued Ford, and by 1982, he was taking Chrysler to court as well. Often acting as his own lawyer, Kearns even enlisted his children as paralegals. His home quickly became overwhelmed with legal documents. This took a toll on his family, leading to his wife’s decision to divorce him.
After years of battling some of the largest corporations in the world, Kearns finally achieved a victory. In 1990, Ford settled for $10.2 million, and Chrysler paid him $21 million. Yet, Kearns wasn't content with just the money. His true goal was not wealth—it was to prevent the auto industry from using his invention so that he could establish his own wiper manufacturing business.
Unfortunately for Kearns, things didn't turn out as he had hoped. His subsequent lawsuits against GM and foreign companies were dismissed, and most of the millions he received were consumed by legal costs.
In 2005, Kearns passed away from cancer at the age of 77. Despite having defeated two automotive giants and even inspiring a movie starring Greg Kinnear, he never viewed his journey as a success. His real desire was to run his own factory that produced intermittent wipers, a dream that ultimately remained unfulfilled.
7. The Winkler County Nurses vs. Kermit Officials
Naomi Warren, Vickilyn Galle, and Anne Mitchell were nurses at Winkler County Memorial Hospital in Kermit, Texas, and they had serious concerns about the new doctor. Rolando Arafiles never reviewed medical charts and routinely altered patients' prescriptions. He diagnosed patients using a self-made checklist inspired by alternative medicine books and handed out free samples of herbal remedies, hoping to get patients to buy his products. To make matters worse, he was a family practice doctor performing surgeries in the emergency room without proper training.
Alarmed by his practices, the nurses approached Stan Wiley, the hospital administrator, but he dismissed their concerns and instructed them to stop submitting the doctor’s records for peer review. Frustrated, Naomi Warren resigned, but the other two nurses couldn’t ignore what was happening. They sent letters to the Texas Medical Board (TMB), urging them to investigate. While Warren used her real name, her colleagues chose to remain anonymous.
The TMB decided to investigate the situation and informed Arafiles that he was under scrutiny. Enraged, the doctor turned to his golf partner, Sheriff Robert Roberts. Arafiles claimed he was being unfairly targeted, prompting the sheriff to launch an unlawful probe to expose the whistleblowers.
In violation of medical confidentiality, Roberts began questioning hospital patients to find out who had reported Arafiles. He then illegally obtained the nurses’ complaints from the TMB, using them to track down Galle and Mitchell. Though the letters were anonymous, the nurses had provided personal details like their age and gender, allowing Roberts to connect the dots. He then turned to Winkler County attorney Scott Tidwell, requesting a warrant to search the nurses’ computers.
Tidwell served as the personal lawyer for Roberts, Arafiles, and the hospital.
Armed with a warrant, Roberts discovered the complaints on the nurses' computers. He reported the women to Stan Wiley, and both Galle and Mitchell were dismissed from their positions. A few days later, Galle and Mitchell (but curiously not Warren) were charged with misuse of official information and faced up to 10 years in prison. However, as the trial approached, Tidwell dropped the charges against Galle and focused solely on Mitchell, likely due to her outspoken New York background, which clashed with the dominant Texas culture.
The jury, sensing a conspiracy, acquitted Anne Mitchell. Remarkably, justice prevailed. The conspirators were fined and incarcerated, Roberts was removed from his position as sheriff, and Arafiles had his medical license revoked. Today, the women travel the country, speaking at nursing conferences and advocating for patients' rights.
6. Jabbar Collins vs. The State Of New York
In 1994, Rabbi Abraham Pollack was murdered, and an innocent young man named Jabbar Collins was wrongly accused of the crime. Despite claiming he had been getting a haircut at the time, three witnesses placed Collins at the scene. As a result, a judge sentenced him to a prison term of 34 years to life.
However, Collins refused to accept his fate. He dedicated much of his time to studying in the prison library, poring over legal textbooks and learning how to access public records. After two months of research, he began filing requests for trial records. When his requests were denied, he filed appeals and initiated a lawsuit. His persistence ultimately paid off, and Collins spent eight years carefully reviewing transcripts, determined to find a way to prove his innocence.
In 2003, Collins went undercover and contacted Arian Diaz, one of the three key witnesses. Posing as a district attorney investigator, Collins managed to get Diaz to confess that his testimony had been coerced by authorities threatening to revoke his probation. This revelation was especially damaging, as the prosecutor had concealed this information from Collins's defense attorney.
Two years after, Collins reached out to another witness, Edwin Oliva, who admitted that he had been arrested for robbery at the location where Pollack had been shot. He revealed that officials had pressured him to sign a statement blaming Collins, threatening to charge him as an accessory to murder. In return, he received a lighter sentence for his burglary charges, yet the prosecutor falsely claimed that no incentives were given to the witnesses for their testimonies.
Equipped with fresh evidence, Collins hired civil rights attorney Joel Rudin. Meanwhile, Collins also discovered crucial details: by listening to 911 calls from the day of the incident, he found that none of the recordings matched the voice of Angel Santos, the third witness who was supposedly the one to have called the police. Collins even engaged a voice expert to compare Santos’s voice to the recordings, confirming that there was no match.
Although a state judge rejected Collins’s appeal despite the new evidence, the federal court was more receptive. Following a brief one-day hearing in 2010, a federal judge dismissed all charges against him. After spending 15 years behind bars, Jabbar Collins was freed. He now works as a paralegal for Joel Rudin and received $10 million from New York City and $3 million from the state as compensation for his wrongful imprisonment.
5. Paul Morantz vs. The Synanon Cult
They yelled at each other in anger.Despite the aggressive tactics, it was difficult to deny the results. Synanon boasted a nearly perfect recovery rate, earning them praise from celebrities and politicians alike. Their reputation attracted partnerships with major companies such as IBM, and they generated millions through their for-profit ventures. Their success even led to a Hollywood film about their operations.
However, the supposed 100-percent recovery rate was a complete fabrication. In reality, Synanon was nothing more than a dangerous cult led by a maniac named Charles Dederich. He separated children from their parents, coerced followers into undergoing vasectomies and abortions, and commanded married members to divorce. Dederich was particularly adept at luring in new members, keeping them trapped until they were financially drained.
This is where Paul Morantz came in—a lawyer with a specialization in rescuing people held against their will. In 1977, a desperate husband sought Morantz’s help to free his wife from Synanon. She was mentally unstable, and the cult had kept her captive, draining her finances while convincing her that staying in their environment would cure her mental illness.
Morantz agreed to assist and quickly realized that Synanon was a perilous organization. No one seemed concerned that the group wasn’t a licensed rehabilitation facility or that Dederich was extremely violent. The man commanded a private army, owned $300,000 in weapons, and instructed his followers to attack his enemies. Local law enforcement remained passive because some officers were members of Synanon. Morantz was outclassed.
Still, Morantz outwitted Synanon with his legal acumen. When a mentally unstable woman had a psychotic breakdown, Synanon agreed to release her—if they signed a waiver of liability. Morantz agreed but played them. He drafted a release that absolved Synanon of responsibility, but added the phrase 'for releasing her.' This meant that Synanon was not accountable for letting her leave the cult, allowing the couple to successfully sue Synanon for a substantial sum, prompting Dederich to retaliate against Morantz.
In 1978, Dederich’s followers placed a 150-centimeter (4.5 ft) rattlesnake in Morantz’s mailbox, removing its rattle. When Paul checked the mail, the snake struck, sending him to the hospital for six days. However, Morantz wasn’t intimidated. After recovering, he pursued legal action against Dederich. In a civil trial, he cleverly forced the cult leader into admitting his guilt. By the end, Dederich received five years of probation and was ousted from his position as leader of Synanon.
Eventually, the media and politicians uncovered the true nature of Synanon. The cult was classified as a terrorist organization and lost its tax-exempt status. The vile commune collapsed in 1991. Despite surviving the rattlesnake attack, Morantz became the key figure who set off the series of events that led to Dederich’s demise.
4. Don Giuseppe 'Pino' Puglisi vs. The Mafia
In early 2014, Pope Francis made waves by excommunicating all mafiosos. However, back in 1960, when Giuseppe 'Pino' Puglisi was ordained, the Church's stance was far less strict. While many priests were personally opposed to organized crime, they did little to actively oppose it. To make matters worse, powerful figures like the Archbishop of Palermo even went so far as to dismiss the Mafia as just a myth.
Don Puglisi was determined to change this attitude. After years of service in the village of Godrano, he was transferred to Brancaccio, a poor, Mafia-dominated neighborhood in Palermo, Sicily. The area was under the grip of the ruthless Graviano brothers, Filippo and Giuseppe, but Puglisi wasn’t scared. Upon arriving in Brancaccio, he began a quiet but relentless crusade against the mob’s influence.
To challenge the Mafia, Puglisi aimed to reshape the community’s perspective on crime. His primary focus was the children of Brancaccio. Understanding the importance of education in keeping kids out of danger, the priest encouraged local children to attend school. Additionally, he constructed a soccer field to provide a safe space for them to stay active after classes.
During his sermons, Puglisi took every opportunity to condemn the Mafia, denounce corrupt politicians, and encourage his congregation to stand firm against the mob. He became well-known for challenging people with the powerful question, “And what if somebody did something?.” This stance angered the Mafia. They made threatening phone calls to him, warning of violence, but Don Puglisi never wavered.
The situation came to a tragic climax in 1993. Fed up with the outspoken priest, the Graviano brothers sent a group of assassins to eliminate him. On February 15, Don Puglisi was killed.
However, Puglisi's death was not in vain. The Gravianos and four of their hitmen were sentenced to life in prison, and his murder became a turning point. The Catholic Church publicly denounced the Mafia, and in 2012, they honored Puglisi by declaring him a martyr and beatifying him.
3. The McDonough Family vs. Adam Leroy Lane
On the night of July 30, 2007, the McDonough family was peacefully asleep. Due to a malfunctioning air conditioner, 15-year-old Shea decided to sleep in the cooler guest room, right next door to her parents. Her mother, Jeannie, and father, Kevin, were an everyday American couple living in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, near the busy stretch of Interstate 495.
Shea suddenly woke up to the chilling sensation of a knife pressed to her throat. The man holding it was trucker Adam Leroy Lane, who, in the span of two months, had broken into homes in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, killing two women and injuring another. Now, he was targeting his third victim.
Unfortunately for Lane, he had chosen the wrong house to invade.
Though Lane tried to silence her with a hand over her mouth, Shea managed to release a muffled scream. The broken air conditioner allowed her parents, Kevin and Jeannie, to hear the noise and rush to their daughter's aid. When they opened the door, they were confronted with a man dressed in black, wearing a ninja mask. They went into superhero mode.
Kevin stood at 175 centimeters (5’9”) and weighed 72 kilograms (160 lb), while Jeannie was 155 centimeters (5’1”) and 60 kilograms (135 lb). Both were groggy, unarmed, and dressed only in their underwear. In contrast, Lane was a towering figure at 180 centimeters (5’11″), tipping the scales at 110 kilograms (245 lb), and armed with two knives, a throwing star, and a garrote. But none of that stopped Kevin from taking him down.
In a desperate move, Kevin threw himself onto the assailant, but like a relentless villain in a horror film, Lane managed to stagger back to his feet with Kevin clinging to him. Jeannie rushed in, trying to grab the blade, but she ended up slashing her hands in the process.
As Jeannie fought for control of the weapon, Kevin locked Lane in a chokehold while Shea called 911. The chaotic struggle went on for four minutes until the police arrived. As the officers dragged Lane away, Kevin, maintaining his calm, muttered, “Get that scum outta here.” Lane was eventually sentenced to life in prison, and though the McDonoughs were left shaken, they survived the ordeal.
But perhaps they weren’t such underdogs after all. Kevin later reflected, “We had angels watching over us that night.”
2. North Jackson High School vs. Fort Payne
In February 1992, the North Jackson Chiefs faced off against the Fort Payne Wildcats, and everyone expected the Chiefs to lose. Fort Payne was a much larger school with a bigger roster. Meanwhile, the Chiefs were from the small town of Stevenson, Alabama. To make matters worse, their top scorer quit just days before the game.
But the game turned into an all-out battle, with the score swinging back and forth until it went into overtime. Here's where things got strange: In the NBA, referees typically call about 50 fouls a game, but in the Stevenson gym, there were over 80 personal fouls, and the Chiefs were losing players one by one.
By the end, only two Chiefs remained—Robert Collier and Chad Cobb. Robert stood 210 centimeters (6’1”) tall and weighed 110 kilograms (245 lb), while Chad was a much shorter 170 centimeters (5’8″). The two had spent years playing basketball against adults on a dusty lot, but now, with the game tied and just 17 seconds left, they faced five Wildcats eager to take them down.
Robert had to pass the ball to Chad, but Cobb was completely surrounded. With a quick fake, he broke free from the crowd and caught Robert’s pass. Darting across the court, Chad attempted a layup... but missed. However, Robert was right behind him. He grabbed the rebound, executed a pump fake, and tricked the defenders into jumping. As they fell, Robert made the shot, securing the victory with a final score of 69 to 67.
The boys became local legends, but their moment of glory was short-lived. That miraculous game didn’t lead to basketball stardom or a life-altering change. Robert spiraled into drug addiction and eventually ended up in prison. Chad, on the other hand, survived a motorcycle crash and was later shot by one of his own teammates.
Despite not achieving their dreams of fame, Chad is now a father of two. Reflecting on his life, he told Radiolab, “I’m happy with my ending.” Even though they didn’t become superstars, Robert and Chad still share the memory of that game where they defied the odds and defeated five Wildcats.
1. Anthony Omari vs. Machete-Wielding Gangsters
If you've ever watched Oldboy, you know that hammers can be powerful weapons. For real-life proof, just ask Anthony Omari. Armed with only a claw hammer, he bravely took on a gang of thieves... not once, but twice.
The Faraja Children’s Home, situated in Ngong, Kenya, is run by Omari’s mother, Martha “Momma” Bosire. In January 2012, the orphanage housed over 30 children. However, it was in serious trouble. Despite their best efforts, Bosire and Omari struggled with a lack of funds, inadequate food, and frequent attacks from machete-wielding thugs. During one of these invasions, Omari used a hammer to scare off the criminals. That was just the first encounter.
A few nights later, the thugs came back, this time determined to cause harm. Omari woke to find himself surrounded, and without hesitation, he grabbed his trusty hammer from under his bed. He swung wildly, fighting his way out of the room, dodging machetes as the attackers slashed at him. By the time Omari managed to escape, the orphans were awake, their screams filling the air.
Omari quickly tried to guide the children to safety, but one of the thieves managed to slash his face with a machete. The gash stretched from his forehead to his lip, but Omari wasn’t finished. Covered in blood, he struck back, knocking the attacker down with his hammer before locking the children in their room. He passed out shortly after. When he awoke, his face was horribly injured, but the thieves were gone, and the children were safe.
The tale doesn't end here. After hearing about Omari's courageous actions, Penn State student Ben Hardwick shared the story on Reddit. He launched a donation campaign to help Omari secure the orphanage, and in the end, he raised over $80,000. With these funds, Hardwick was able to provide the children’s home with new padlocks, hire professional guards, and build a 2.5-meter (8 ft) fence. Thanks to this support, Omari's situation had dramatically changed, and he was no longer the underdog.
