Was Mike McCallum? He fought some beasts in Toney, Kalambay, Jackson, Curry and McCrory, but how come fights against Starling, Hearns, Duran, Leonard, Hagler and Nunn never came off?
I don't know if it's fair to say he was really avoided all that much. Respected for sure, but I think most of it was unfortunate timing....... Leonard: Leonard was retired when McCallum rose to prominence and didn't re-enter the fold until he came back to beat Hagler in 1987. From there he never stopped bouncing around weight classes and taking long stretches of time off between fights. Leonard didn't get to a lot of fighters around that time, it wasn't as if McCallum should be singled out as The One that was left out. Hagler: By the time McCallum won the 154-pound title in 1984, Halger was essentially only fighting once a year, and already had his dance list pretty full a couple years out. Leonard beat him and ended his career before McCallum even made the jump to 160 anyway, so there's no basis for saying Hagler ducked him either. Hearns: Again, timing; McCallum and Hearns both fought for Kronk early on when Mike was on his way up, then had to split with Kronk in order to get his break, as Steward didn't want his two prizes to go at each other. I guess there you might have a pretty good reason to say Hearns and Steward steered clear of McCallum, but I think it was more a business interest avoidance rather than "steer clear of that bad man."..........then, Hearns moved up in weight to challenge Hagler, and nobody thought any more about it. Nunn: Good question. Should've come off, though in this case with McCallum losing to Kalambay, one might imagine McCallum's braintrust wanted as little to do with the super-slick none as Nunn wanted to do with him. Maybe more so. Duran: Meh. This one was money. He was going to make a huge amount of money fighting Hearns and a little bit of money fighting McCallum in defense of the WBA crown. Listen, whores and coke and booze are expensive. Duran had to consider all angles here. From a business standpoint, any fighter anywhere would have fought Hearns for more money. Huge risk in fighting him too, let's add....... Starling: Not sure why this would be considered a dodge. Starling didn't move up in weight until very late in his career when he had little cache' anymore.
Which is kind of silly really, considering that of that list, Hagler was the one he stood the least chance of fighting, in terms of weight classes inhabited at the time and schedule/timing. He should have been more pizzed off about Hearns. Hagler was never even mentioned as a potential opponent for McCallum at the time. Seems odd then this many years on to read that he could possibly be so bitter about something that no one even spoke about or considered as even a long shot.
yeah. i posted a youtube link to the video in the post before yours salsanchezfan.....at the same time you were posting.
What a shame that it didn,t happen.... it would have been a 50/50 fight. 1985 hagler would have been a slight favorite . 1986 even 1987 edge to McCallum
