Top 10 greatest cherrypickers of all time

No, that Floyd and Pac didn't square up years ago is the worst missed opportunity of those. Williams and Margarito seem like decent shouts also (even though Floyd did easily beat Cotto who beat up Margarito when he didn't cheat). It is a bit funny though to see Floyd (quite fairly) get stick for not facing Margarito even though Pac's dominating win over the same guy often is more or less dismissed.

But it seems fair to accuse Floyd of some cherry picking for facing the likes of Baldomir and Hatton instead of at least one these two.

 

7 defenses before they allowed him to leave the safe confines of Panama. However, i just think that outside of the two DeJesus fights, the Lampkin fight and the Viruet fight that most of his 12 defenses were undeserving. Most of them weren't bad fighters, just that there was more deserving fighters out there, which is the topic of this thread. For instance, Hector Thompson was actually one of the best he fought, second only to Dejesus. But in 1973 no one knew that. He was unrated by Ring, had only won the Commonwealth title from old Joe Tetteh and that was it. Over the course of '74-'75 Thompson really hit his stride and I can give full plaudits to Antonio Cervantes for defending against him as the #1 contender at Jr. Welter. A practice Duran's people neglected.

 

These are not my words, but they are true.

 

There's a bit of truth and a bit of exaggeration to them, but, sure, Floyd made himself guilty to some cherry picking at WW, that much seems clear. I'm satisfied.

 

I respect the above.

But look at what else he did in his career.

He fought Hagler at MW etc.

His name doesn't spring to mind when I think of someone who cherry picked.

 

10 greatest heavyweight cherrypickes by my opinion:
1.Valuev
2.Wladimir Klitschko
3.Liston
4.Foreman
5.Pianeta
6.Wach
7.Povetkin
8.T. Fury
9.Shavers
10. Briggs

 

Wtf? Second reign? Foreman hadn't second reign.
He didn't rule the division in his second coming.

 

1. I think Foreman was stripped by the WBA for refusing to face Tony Tucker.
(Basically Foreman was lame against the decent tall guys.And Tucker was
far away from his prime)
Tyson beat the prime Tucker
2.And i think Foreman was stripped by the IBF for refusing to give Schulz a rematch.

 

I'm not implying he did, only his management. I truly believe the DeJesus loss put the fright into them and made them wary. And I am on record here as saying I believe he was the greatest 135 pounder of all time.

 

:good

 

The only person I've read accusing Duran of ducking was that filthy ****** scum Ayala Jr, and he doesn't count. I think Roberto would have fought anyone, any time, anywhere. If his management did try to protect him, I doubt he was too aware of it.

 

Bokaj, in your initial post on this thread you mentioned Johnson, Dempsey and Zale. I too thought of Zale at first, but looking at his record and who was available I'm inclined to give Tony a pass on this one. He beat Hostak in a rough one and gave Al a rematch after Al won about 4 fights. Nothing wong with that. Al deserved it. I cannot give Tony a pass for the Mamakos fight. Steve did nothing to deserve that fight other than getting his arse kicked by Tony on a non-title. He then unified the title against top dog Georgie Abrams. But then the war broke out and Tony was side-lined in the Navy doing his service. When he got out there were some top guys out there but Graziano was about #4 and everyone knew Rocky was boxoffice. I can't blame Pian and Winch for going for the gold. When the 3 fight series was over he fought Cerdan who had beaten Holman Williams. So, looking carefully at it, only the Mamakos fight was poor.

Vince, I like your choice of Sammy Serrano. Definitely cherry-picked whilst Alexis Arguello was fighting the toughies at 130.

3 more I would include are Carlos Zarate, Tommy Hearns at welter and Milton McCrory.

 

Ignorance.

Bernard Hopkins won his title in April of 1995. McLellan was a vegetable in February of 1995 just a few months later Jackson had been embarrassed by Quincy Taylor and tossed into the trash heap from which he never emerged. Jorge Castro could and probably would have happened had he not lost to the horrid Shinji Takahara at the end of the year due to weight issues and then moved up never to return to MW. Steve Collins had already moved up to 168 by the time Hopkins had won his title at 160 and dont get me started on Collins "wins" over Eubank or the level of his title defenses... Reggie Johnson was chasing Castro when Hopkins won his title and when he lost their rematch at the end of 1995 he not only left MW but leap frogged past SMW to jump two divisions up to 175 and never came back down. So yeah, your timing and your comment about Hopkins ducking people is way off base. Especially when you act like instead of fighting Morrade Hakkar he should have fought one of those guys. The Hakkar fight was nearly a decade after any of those fights could have even been dreamed of. Anyone who was around boxing in the mid 90s can tell you that Hopkins wanted the biggest fights he could get but was frozen out of the picture by Don King (which is why he went ape **** against King during the promotion for the MW unification). The division was depleted by the time Hopkins established himself and he chased any fight he could get, practically begging for it. Its sad that some want to diminish or ignore that and paint the holes in his record as ducking because in reality it was the exact opposite and why his domination of the MW tournament was such a feel good story. King had even tried to freeze him out of that despite being the longest establish champion in the division but HBO suits forced King to accept his inclusion (after Hopkins agreed to take short money) and he proved he was the man in the division all along. His two biggest rivals werent McLellan, or Johnson, or Castro, or anyone else but Joppy and Holmes, both of whom were prevented from fighting Hopkins by King and when they did you saw why: He dominated both easily. Yeah the guy is a cherry picker which is why hes still fighting at 50 and his next fight is against a guy some think will kill him. He could easily be sitting in a rocking chair right now and grinning over his millions while waiting for his first year induction into the HOF.

 

I also can't blame Tony Zale and his management to go after the big money, which meant that Zale was to fight Rocky Graziano three times. It is probable that Graziano was not one of the top 3 or 4 middleweights at the time, but his three bouts with Zale proved that he was a formidable fighter.

Throughout boxing history, fighters and their managers have made such decisions in a sport which has a very strong business element. Keep that in mind when reading ridiculous assertions about Sugar Ray Robinson ducking Charley Burley, who was light-years from being a big enough gate attraction to make it worthwhile for the most popular boxers to fight him during the 1940s. Was that completely fair that Burley didn't get bouts with the most popular fighters? It was not, but Burley may have been partly at fault. Part of the job of the fighter is to develop his marketability as much as possible.

- Chuck Johnston

 

While one might call this cherry picking it hardly ranks anywhere close to the top 10 of all time. There's a fine line between cherry picking and being a prudent matchmaker and this is far from an extreme example of the former.

Gonna go home and read the bio I just bought on Duran and see if I can't get a better handle on this, but off the top of my head this doesn't seem all that egregious.

If anything I think Leonard was far more of a cherry picker than Duran, or his management, ever was.