LOL, I guess it still is frustrating for the fans, but understandable than a straight put duck out of fear.
Also I'm not seeing any Uysk hate (apart from @mrbigshot who clearly hates him) Criticism is totally different to hate and it's justified on this occasion You can't have all the praise when doing everything right and think you'd be immune to valid criticism
I was hoping this thread stays clear of personal offence , beyond the fact i,m in no way an usyk "hater" . This is also more generally about ducking and not a specific athlete , but interesting you by yourself bring usyk in .
Well zhang knocked wilder out. The mediocre turk knocked zhang out. Usyk wanted to fight wilder. For all of his career usyk took the hardest challenges available. He has one of the best quality per opponent resumes in boxing history. But since the second fury fight he is chasing the money. I was arguing against someone on Here who said usyk would only be about the money later when there was no indication to me at the time. But kabayel could be a challenge for the aging usyk and he is not taking it.
When two fighters have belts or are top contenders and are in the same age group and are at or near peaks and one of them doesn’t have their balls
Giving up a Belt to avoid fighting somebody,Riddick Bowe being a prime example of this,the annoying thing being that at the time I thought Bowe v Lewis could have gone either way imo !
Hint : That Usyk is fighting a guy with a 1-0 boxing record next and at his own request, defending his WBC heavyweight title against him has a lot to do with the criticism he is receiving.
A duck is when the fighter avoids the big/worthy opponent to protect themselves from losing. So the clearest examples of this lately are the many AJ ducks. AJ had a chance to fight Fury for belts and massive money and had about 12 weeks to prepare. He should have jumped at it, even on far less preparation, but made it difficult enough for it to fall through. He did that because he wanted to 'rebuild' and get a belt back. Losing to Fury would scuttle that. AJ was being called out by Wilder years ago but instead fought Wallin and others. Same reason as Fury duck. Didn't want to risk losing and wanted the safe road to 'champion' status again. He probably ducked Wilder for years but it's hard to prove because they both may have been ducking eachother. AJ finally got that opportunity he wanted with Dubious. At the time Dubious was considered fragile and AJ was confident of beating him. He got destroyed. Normally somebody would take that rematch. But AJ was scared of losing again so ducked the rematch.
Thank you very much for the valuable comments so far ! I see it very similar and it seems users basicly agree what an obvious duck is like dropping a belt to not fight , choosing an weaker opponent to avoid the most rightful challanger etc . What about a bit more tricky situation with e.g dubois vs parker where dubois pulls out on short notice because he has a chance to fight usyk for undisputed . usyk obviously wants dubois and not parker as the opponent , but of course only when he still has a belt to offer . So its better for dubois not to risk the belt in a parker fight - because loosing this fight would ruin duboi,s chance for an undisputed fight . Is this a duck ?