Biggest duck jobs ever

Who pulled the biggest pussy jobs ever ???

Riddick Bowe ducking Lennox ?

Floyd ducking Pacquiao ?

Who is it ? Who pulled the biggest bitch move ever ?

 

One that doesn't get a lot of attention, thanks to the sympathy vote and thanks to his being a popular fighter, is Johnny Tapia avoiding Mark Johnson.

 

Haye avoiding Wlad.

 

:bears:been yelling about that one for a decade

Riddick/Lewis is definitely one of the worst

 

Foreman dodged Quarry & Lewis, in two separate eras. I think the first, to be fair, had more to do with Foreman's management than the man himself, but he definitely wanted no part of Lewis in his second stint.

Hard not to give him a pass though, given his age. Reversing it, how about Tyson avoiding Foreman like the plague?

To me, one of the absolute worst has to be Johnson running from Jeanette, McVey & Langford whilst Champion. I cannot think of a more cowardly or weak example in modern times, though, than Mayweather going to such lengths to avoid Pacquiao, in apparent protection of his, '0.' It has become more than the man's marketing gimmick --- it is now his obsession.

 

Bowe wasn't scared of Lewis iirc, there is a backstory to that (I don't recall it all and I don't feel like searching atm).

I'd say Pacquiao ducking Floyd and Haye avoiding Wlad.

 

Just off of the money Floyd versus Pac has to be number one.

Also Roy versus Michalczewski as well as Michalczewski vs Roy Jones.

 

The backstory is Bowe tossed his belt in the trash. He was scared.

 

Larry Holmes had one or two during his title reign.

 

Pac is as willing to fight Floyd as Floyd is Manny.

 

Yep. Holmes had his own version of Bowe-Lewis with Greg Page and didn't want anything to do with Pinklon Thomas.

 

Floyd Patterson cost Sonny Liston a much longer title reign by spending years avoiding him and pretty much every other serious contender during his title reign.

 

Patterson did insist on facing Liston when he could've been granted a pass for dodging that particular bullet --- history would've been fairly kind to him. No one of the day wanted for Liston's title shot, & D'Amato was equally responsible for the delay (having it his way, Liston would never receive a shot).

Besides, I think Patterson was justifiably busy between 1959 & '61 with Johansson --- a legit contender. The closeness of their third fight vindicated Johansson's rubber-match opportunity, IMO.

 

Bowe and Lewis is the first thing I thought of when I saw the thread.

 

And yet somehow Patterson found the time to fight the likes of Brian London, Pete Rademacher (in his friggin' Pro debut), Roy Harris and Tom McNeely instead of Liston (or Zora Folley, Eddie Machen, Cleveland Williams, Nino Valdez, etc...while Liston was in prison).

And IMO...tying up the title between the two of them for almost two years for a total of 3 fights doesn't strike me as "justifiably busy"...especially when the best heavyweight in the world had to wait over three years from the time of the first Floyd-Ingo fight to get his long overdue title shot. And while they were displaying their profound lack of defense and chin...Liston was beating every other top contender of the time.

And even after Patterson won the rubber match...Liston had to wait another 18 months before finally getting his long overdue title shot...which he won with ease...showing exactly why he was avoided so long.

Not only did Patterson make Liston wait forever for a title shot, but also wouldn't fight any other legit contenders (outside of Ingo...who, except for his right hand, was pretty mediocre). I consider Patterson a pretty major duck job because he spent most of his title reign not fighting top contenders.

 

Bowe-Lewis is definitely a good example. Especially when Bowe went on to fight Dokes and Ferguson instead. And even the Holyfield rematch, which at the time very few, if any, expected Holyfield to be competitive, much less win.

 

Floyd/Pac takes the #1 spot in my book.

 

It was definitely more Rock Newman than anything else. A big part of it was HBO signing Bowe to a record-high contract back when such deals were contingent on the fighter continuing to win. It was their intention to milk the contract for all it was worth before facing someone with a pulse, plus they also had to give Holyfield a rematch.

I don't defend any of it, even as a Bowe fan and someone who rarely rooted for Lewis. Dumping a belt to fight Michael Dokes is as disgraceful as it gets.

Speaking of Lewis, and this thread - King/Tyson paid Lewis $4 million in step aside money just to fight Bruce Seldon (who was a titlist at the time). The fight was a bust on every level,Tyson still avoided his mandatory in Lewis afterward, giving up his WBC belt, and then lost to Holyfield twice over.

Would say that has to rank somewhere up there.

 

IMO, Haye avoiding the Klitschkos is far worse than the Floyd-Pac situation.

There's still no clear answer in who wanted the fight more (or less) between Floyd and Pac. With Haye and the Klits, there's no doubt that Haye is avoiding them at all costs. Pulled out of one fight and backed out of two more negotiations when all that was needed was a signature... and hasn't done shit in the interim. Never mind the fact that he won't even entertain the thought of fighting Vitali.

 

In fairness to Mike he was barely 3 fights out of jail, a certain leeway with that one seems in order. (Although when you pretend to be a 'world champion' as you fight comeback tune ups you exhaust sympathy a bit...)

 

The last part basically kills the argument. And I don't have sympathy for any fighter/manager/promoter who goes out of their way to scoop up a cheap alphabet belt and then tries to bitch about the politics of the sport when forced to either face their mandatory or vacate. They know what they're getting into when they fight for the belt.

 

It's pretty obvious that Arum hasn't wanted the fight to happen and Manny seems more than reluctant to take the tests.

Just look at the amount of excuses he came up with regarding taking them.

 

4 mill for not even fighting. LL must have been living the dream.

 

But none bigger than, "I'm not aware of any negotiations having taken place."

 

Absolutely. Tyson (and King) wanted no part of Lewis at that time.

 

Help me understand 'ducking'. To me, if I'm Holmes and I have an option to fight Marvis Frazier for better than $3 million or Greg Page for less than $3 million, I'm fighting the little Frazier who has almost zero experience.

It always pissed me off at the time because it screwed up the title picture with the WBC, but I never faulted Holmes for making the choice.

Now Pinklon Thomas is a different story. When Witherspoon beat Page for the vacant WBC belt, I didn't care about Holmes fighting either one since he already had a win against Spoon. But, once Thomas beat Witherspoon to take Holmes's former WBC crown, it was the only fight I wanted to see. Well, until Spinks moved up anyway.

Bottom line is I think Thomas legitimately was ducked, but Page was a business decision.

 

Nope, not to me. This isn't rocket science. Page was the number one contender and Holmes dropped his title rather than fight him. I know all about the money involved, but the bottom line is Holmes refused a fight with the #1 contender.

And I DO fault Holmes for not taking the Page fight AND also looking for an easy path to 50-0 because all the bitching he did (and he did a lot of it) about being in Ali's shadow and lack of respect, etc... His place in history is rightfully behind Ali as Holmes didn't fight all of the best opposition available to him when he was champ.

I was really happy when Spinks upset Holmes and foiled Holmes' plan of backing into 50-0 by fighting the Light-heavy and Cruiserweight champions as there was talk of Holmes fighting Alfonso Ratliff for his 50th win if he beat Spinks (which he was expected to do without too much difficulty).

 

Thats true. For once Arum wasn't lying.

 

I'm not sure that part is completely true. King was dead-set against Holmes fighting Spinks from what I recall (or at least what I've read). The perception was that Holmes was "picking" on a smaller man, but King wanted an even softer path to the record books.

I don't blame Holmes for the Frazier/Page thing. In fact, I agree with Trplsec's take that it was a smart business decision. Not to mention that even after cries of ducking, Page had his chance to get back in line and wound up losing to David Bey, who Holmes did fight one fight later.

Wasn't that the argument used in the SRR thread, that he beat the guys who beat the black fighters he supposedly avoided?

Also, it's not like Page did a lot to earn the ranking anyway, or that he ever amounted to much (and that's even ignoring the absurd though unavoidable "second coming" label given to him). Alphabet ratings were just as much for sale back then as they are today.

 

Ha, I know right. I still remember that crazy ass conference call at 2AM (my time). But yeah, all the more proof that Floyd and Pac deserve equal blame for the fight not happening at some point last year.