Being avoided or “ducked” is a part of boxing, especially with regard to the business side of it.
While fighters often want the fights, it comes down to things like how much money the bout can make, and whether the matchup could propel a fighter onto bigger and better things.
David Benavidez faces Anthony Yarde on Saturday in a light heavyweight main event taking place at ANB Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Benavidez is arguably a top 10 pound-for-pound fighter, but the story of his career so far is his inability to land marquee fights against stars who have more to lose from fighting him.
Often, fighters with difficult styles, labeled as “spoilers,” are at the top of this list. Ducked fighters often have to move up in weight or fight in hostile territory, giving up any advantage just to get a chance of landing a fight. Their legacy can be muddied as the years go by and people forget their primes.
Here, we look at the 10 modern boxers who were “ducked.”
10. Demetrius Andrade
Record: 32-1 (19 KOs)
“It's me, again” were words often uttered by Demetrius Andrade. Andrade was one of the top junior middleweights and middleweights but never got a chance to test himself against the highest level of opposition. He had failed negotiations with Jermell Charlo, and his bout with Billy Joe Saunders was canceled.
Andrade just had bad luck securing the big fights. On top of that, fans didn’t demand to see him. Andrade was a talented fighter who was a 2008 U.S. Olympian but could never leverage the big fight, and he never seemed close to a bout against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. He would eventually get a shot at super middleweight against David Benavidez in 2023, which he lost.
9. Janibek Alimkhanuly
Record: 17-0 (12 KOs)
Alimkhanuly has had an odd run. In fact, at one point he was the mandatory challenger for Andrade and the two could have faced each other in a consequential bout in 2022. That bout didn’t happen and Alimkhanuly became the interim titleholder earlier that year, stopping Danny Dignum. However, after being elevated to the WBO middleweight titleholder, he had an outlier performance against Denzel Bentley in a fight that felt like it could have gone either way.
That one performance has people divided on where Alimkhanuly sits as a fighter. Is he a true modern boogeyman, ahead of his fight against Erislandy Lara, the WBA titleholder, on December 6? Or is he a good fighter, fighting in a barren middleweight division, and simply unable to land big fights, thus making him less noticeable? It is a wait-and-see situation. He did unify titles by stopping Vincenzo Gualtieri to win the IBF title, but he has only fought twice in two years.
8. Erislandy Lara
Record: 31-3-3 (19 KOs)
In Lara’s prime, he was able to handle anyone. His loss to Paul Williams is considered one of the worst decisions in recent memory, and people still debate who won the Lara-Saul “Canelo” Alvarez bout. Lara is a brilliant mover who often throws straight, accurate punches, but what really made him tough was the power he had to go along with it. Accurate punches, proper movement, a composed fighter and, even past his prime, at the age of 42, Lara is one of the best middleweights in the world.
Like many avoided fighters, Lara had snoozers where he didn’t stop opponents he was clearly better than, and so some fight fans have been left uninspired. Lara is a fighter not many would willingly face in his prime, and even now in his twilight years.
7. Ronald “Winky” Wright
Record: 51-6-1 (25 KOs)
Wright spent his developmental years in Europe facing stern opposition. He was a tricky fighter with a high guard that was hard to get through, and he was a southpaw. Wright would simply make most opponents look bad even in a losing effort, and he could box on the back foot and put pressure on an opponent coming forward. He scored victories over Shane Mosley (twice) and defeated Felix Trinidad, although he lost a close fight to Fernando Vargas years earlier. Wright was a tough fight for anyone, and his ability to press forward as a defensively sound southpaw made it hard for him to land bouts.
6. Guillermo Rigondeaux
Record: 23-3 (16 KOs)
Rigondeaux, not unlike Lara, was a tricky fighter. One of the best Cuban boxers ever, he defeated Nonito Donaire and made it look effortless with a composed boxing style making Donaire look a level below him. Impressive considering Donaire had won Boxer of the Year a year before that fight. The performance by Rigondeaux was labeled as boring by some observers and fans. He struggled to find television dates and to get compelling matchups.
In 2017, he faced another legend, Vasiliy Lomachenko, moving up to junior lightweight after spending most of his career at junior featherweight. The result wasn’t good as Lomachenko was too big and also showed that Rigondeaux, like most great amateurs, was limited in his ability to fight on the inside. Yet a lot of top fighters were not eager to face a prime Rigondeaux, so we will never truly know how good he was at his peak.
5. Shakur Stevenson
Record: 24-0 (11 KOs)
Stevenson has become a three-division titleholder and has struggled to find opponents. Sure, he fought Oscar Valdez, Joet Gonzalez, Robson Conceicao and William Zepeda, but he’s failed to attract the biggest names to his resume – by no fault of his own. Now, Stevenson appears to be in talks to fight against Teofimo Lopez. If that were to happen, he’d do what most avoided fighters have to do and move up in weight and box in the fourth weight class in his eighth year as a professional.
Stevenson is a wizard in the ring, able to move and make opponents look foolish as well as having enough power to keep people honest and, as we saw against Edwin De Los Santos, he is capable of boxing a composed fight that he knows he can win.
4. Terence Crawford
Record: 42-0 (31 KOs)
History is written by the victor, and Crawford came out the winner. So, the good portion of his welterweight career where he was forced to make title defenses will now be remembered for his inability to unify as much as the victories themselves.
Crawford could fight from both stances, had a killer instinct finishing top-level opponents and, while moving up in weight, would bully fighters most perceived as having a physical advantage. Crawford was a mix of talent, skills, meanness and physical ability. He was as talented as an all-time great boxer with the physical conditioning of a national champion NCAA Division I wrestler. Crawford recently became the undisputed super middleweight champion after capturing a title at junior middleweight.
3. Paul Williams
Record: 41-2 (27 KOs)
A 6ft 1ins southpaw who fought as a pressure fighter and who was capable of throwing 1,000 punches per fight and making the welterweight limit was inherently a problem. Some will contend that Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao ducked Williams, and certainly no one during that time was eager to find out how good he was.
Williams defeated the best version of Antonio Margarito. He would also get outboxed by Carlos Quintana (whom he iced in a round in an immediate rematch), which showed he was mortal. Williams would end up having to move up to middleweight to face Sergio Martinez in two bouts, where he found another avoided fighter willing to take him on. His knockout loss to Martinez derailed his career, and not long after that, he suffered a tragic motorcycle accident that left him paralyzed.
2. David Benavidez
Record: 30-0 (24 KOs)
Often it is a style or matchup that causes an unwillingness to face top opposition. With Benavidez, it also feels like because he enters the ring to hurt people. He lost his WBC super middleweight title, which will always haunt him, as it would have forced a bout with Alvarez. He has gotten into fights with big names like Andrade, Caleb Plant, and David Morrell yet, despite a lot of talk, the Alvarez fight never came to fruition. Benavidez has never had the luxury of facing the bigger name. Plant was coming off a loss to Alvarez when they met; the pressure was on Benavidez.
Benavidez has since left the super middleweight division for light heavyweight. He headlines this week’s card on Saturday against Anthony Yarde. A win here would presumably put him in line to face either Artur Beterbiev or Dmitry Bivol, who are rumored to have the third bout of their rivalry in 2026. Benavidez has landed big fights in his era, but he has been devoid of the big money marquee matchups against a fighter like Alvarez.
1. Gennadiy Golovkin
Record: 42-2-1 (37 KOs)
Golovkin had a lot of title defenses because, during his knockout streak, he was so formidable that mandatory defenses were the only fights he could land. A mainstay of HBO Boxing in the last decade, Golovkin would fight consistently and form a relationship with U.S. fight fans.
Brash puncher Curtis Stevens called out Golovkin, and after Golovkin stopped him, it seemed the calls for Golovkin stopped. Golovkin would have a less than stellar outing against Daniel Jacobs after years of trying to get a Saul “Canelo” Alvarez fight, which led to their eventual trilogy of contests. Golovkin, when the first fight happened, was already an older fighter. In Golovkin’s prime, he struggled to get notable names.
