The Whole Issue of Ducking in Boxing

[HaglerSteelChin]

I think its comical how haters will always try to put down fighters when they say say they duck guys. Roy Jones ducked Nigel Benn, Steve Collins, Chris Eubank, and Dariusz Michaelsowski. Although he was willing to fight them in the US or a netural country. Yet how many believe those guys could beat jones in his prime. Remember Jones got robbed in the Olympics for a Gold because the fighter park was korean and the games were in Seoul, South Korea. You think Jones is ****** enough to go to Germany and fight Dariusz knowing that his only way to win is a KO?

When Pacquaio retires expect to here alot of the same BS. Pac didn't fight at Super Flyweight or Bantam to duck guys like Tapia, Sahaprom, Ayala, Austin, Tokuyama. So instead he went up to 122 where there was weaker opponents. They will say he fought David Diaz at 135 instead of the slick black fighter nate campbell. They will say he fought Ricky Hatton at 140 instead of the slick black fighters Bradley and Alexander. At 147 they will say he ducked Paul Williams and Shane Mosley who both called him out. They will say he used the blood tests as excuse to duck mayweather. Trust me they will disparrage Manny "The Destroyer" Pacquaio AKA Pacman as a ducker.

[UncleRoger]

Floyds the biggest Duck in the sport. No question about it!

[BattlingNelson]

The amount of fantasy fights won by Jones and Mayweather is staggering.

[HaglerSteelChin]

Floyds the biggest Duck in the sport. No question about it!

Margarito, Cotto, and even Kostya wanted him but he choose to fight Arturo Gatti who he called a "paper champion." I will give mayweather credit at 130 because he murder Corrales and he did fight Castillo at 135 but between 140-147 i am not too impressed with his opponents.

[mike ruler]

I think there is a huge difference in definitions of "ducking" on here. A majority of ppl's definition is when there is a fight that they want to see and it doesn't happen they blame one fighter or another, when in reality it could be neither one, just might not work for either fighter at that particular time. In my definition "ducking" is when a fighter calls out another fighter, and it makes money sense to fight him, and for whatever reason, he doesn't. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think Floyd has ever been guilty of that.

[HaglerSteelChin]

If someone wants to be a hater they can use the word duck alot. In the old days, fighters fought almost every month so it was easy to fight virtually everyone and clean out a division. Guys like Sugar Ray Robinson and Henry Armstrong since they fought every month could fight all the greats. Not suprsingly, many guys fought many hall of famers more than once.

The ducking issue is sometimes related to money. If i was Michael Spinks in 1987 i would duck Tony TNT Tucker because i would get a much bigger payday with Gerry Cooney. He is not a coward but if he can make millions more and is giving fans the fight they want it makes sense. He eventually will fight Tyson who was the real champ anyway and even though he got knocked out in 91 seconds he still laughed all the way in the bank.

[Spray_resistant]

I hate how it becomes an acceptable excuse to duck a top rated guy in one's weight division who ppl want to see fight the best because he "doesn't bring enough money".

[BattlingNelson]

If someone wants to be a hater they can use the word duck alot. In the old days, fighters fought almost every month so it was easy to fight virtually everyone and clean out a division. Guys like Sugar Ray Robinson and Henry Armstrong since they fought every month could fight all the greats. Not suprsingly, many guys fought many hall of famers more than once.

The ducking issue is sometimes related to money. If i was Michael Spinks in 1987 i would duck Tony TNT Tucker because i would get a much bigger payday with Gerry Cooney. He is not a coward but if he can make millions more and is giving fans the fight they want it makes sense. He eventually will fight Tyson who was the real champ anyway and even though he got knocked out in 91 seconds he still laughed all the way in the bank.

Sure they fought more often back in the day. Still you can question the choices some fighters make. It's in their selection of opponents you see their colour.

Here's a post I made on Roy Jones:

I did a little research on Roy Jones Jr. and the opposition he fought as a SMW.

Jones was in essense fighting in the 168 lb division from 1993 until 1996.

Keys:

RED = Eventually fought them or fought them already
BLUE = Fought them in that year.

The year end rankings of 1992 looked like this:

1: Michael Nunn
2: Iran Barkley
3: Chris Eubank
4: Victor Cordoba
5: Nigel Benn
6: Tim Littles
7: Darrin Van Horn
8: Tony Thornton
9: Frankie Liles
10: Frank Nicotra

He fought Thornton in 1995.

1993:

1: James Toney
2: Michael Nunn
3: Chris Eubank
4: Nigel Benn
5: Tim Littles
6: Darrin Van Horn
7: Frankie Liles
8: Tony Thornton
9: Antoine Byrd
10: Vincenzo Nardiello


1994: Jones enters the list at no. 1 after beating Toney.

1: Roy Jones Jr.
2: Nigel Benn
3: Chris Eubank
4: Frankie Liles
5: Vinny Pazienza
6: Tim Littles
7: Michael Nunn
8: Ray Close
9: Graciano Rocchigiani
10: Antoine Byrd


1995:

1: Roy Jones Jr.
2: Nigel Benn
3: Steve Collins
4: Frankie Liles
5: Tim Littles
6: Vinny Pazienza
7: Bryant Brannon
8: Henry Wharton
9: Michael Nunn
10: Ray Close


1996:

1: Roy Jones Jr.
2: Frankie Liles
3: Steve Collins
4: Vinny Pazienza
5: Robin Reid
6: Henry Wharton
7: Michael Nunn
8: Vincenzo Nardiello
9: Joseph Kiwanuka
10: Thulani Malinga

At the end of 1996 Jones had moved up.

So Jones work after 4 years at 168 lb consist of an excellent win over Toney and not much else:

Toney
Thornton
Pazienza (LOL)
Byrd
Brannon

Jones never fought a top 3 opponent after Toney. He had 6 fights at 168 after beating him. Of those fights he beat an unranked Thornton, a suspected juiced lightweight in Pazienza, a past it Byrd, a never was in Sosa, a young non-threat in Lucas and a veteran of 16 fights in Brannon.


So the deserving fighters Jones didn't fight (or ducked as it's called on NSB) is these guys:

Nunn
Benn
Eubank
Collins
Barkley
Cordoba
Littles
Van Horn
Liles
Nardiello
Close
Rocchigianni
Nicotra


Let's face it. A Nunn or a Benn or a Eubank or a Liles or even a Collins would have been real nice.

(I hope I didn't miss anyone )

[Thread Stealer]

Most of the cases of "ducking", or "avoiding", are related to risk/reward.

It's can be better nowadays though for the high risk/low reward fighters since they have more titles to choose from, and can use that as a bargaining tool. Or a network will find it more attractive to broadcast since it's a title or unification bout.

[Thread Stealer]

Sure they fought more often back in the day. Still you can question the choices some fighters make. It's in their selection of opponents you see their colour.

I'd say it was worse back then, at least for the avoided fighters. Look at how many title shots Ezzard Charles got at 175. None. And he did so much work there, he's considered the greatest ever at that division. Or how long it took for Archie Moore to finally get his shot. The Black Murderers Row, Sam Langford, Harry Wills.

Not just black fighters. It also took pretty long for Jake LaMotta to get a title shot. He tanked a fight.