Let's discuss some managerial disasters. Anything from matchmaking to promotion will do. There are a few that stand out clearly to me: Gary Russell Jr. vs. Vasiliy Lomachenko The brilliant management team at Russell Jr. Inc. decided that while they were cruising down the "Decent competition once or twice a year" highway at full speed, it would be good to throw it in reverse. You've got a 24-0 champ who clearly wants to learn his craft at a snail's pace, but what's this? there's a 1-1 fighter who is possibly the best 1-1 fighter of all time? Let's make the fight. Vladimir vs. Ibragimov So the blue chip prospect of yesteryear is finally blossoming. He just avenged one of his few defeats in style, and the future is looking very bright. The lustrous American market is there to be had for this humongous KO artist. Instead of getting the tricky southpaw with the WBO belt out of the way in Germany where they love a borefest, let's go full throttle on selling this fight of two relative unknowns to Americans. Joshua vs. Ruiz The loud mouth low skill Big Baby has popped dirty and you've got to find a replacement. Many C level heavyweights jump at the chance to save the card. Senior citizen Ortiz cannot be had (apparently), so who should be thrown in with your champion who does best with a full camp to set up his programming? How about a guy the general public hasn't heard of at all but who everyone in the business says is very dangerous? Fastest hands at heavyweight you say? Trained by Cubans as an amateur you say? 99% of people watching wouldn't know the difference between him and Manuel Charr? Get him in there.
I remember Klitschko vs Ibragimov like it was yesterday. And you’re right HBO promoted that fight heavily as it was the first unification HW fight in almost a decade. It was suppose to Wladimir’s breakthrough to the American audience and Ibragimov had just beaten Briggs and Holyfield. They had no idea that Ibragimov would be satisfied not getting KO’d and Wlad would happily throw the jab and nothing more the whole 12 rds. HBO went away from the HW division for years after that.
Fernando Vargas, they pit him up against tito and DlH too soon. I mean I liked the fights and hate useless marinating but with him it was too early too heavy imo. Also I wasnt alive to see this but putting Marvis Frazier vs Tyson that soon seemed like poor matchmaking on joe's part. Iike they wanted a Ali vs Frazier type thing in the 80's but the guy was out of his league and got steamrolled.
This is probably the most shocking one. Mikey - Spence was awful too but Mikey didn't take much damage and it has now become clear that his fire died and he was just looking for some coin.
Yeah I'm not clear with what happened between Brook and Hearn. I'm not sure if he was cashing Brook out or trying to get in with GGG. It's an odd one as Brook was still prime at that point and still had at least a few more big fights in him. Going up two divisions and fighting someone who's KO ratio is above 90% just seems a bit of an ask. I know Khan gets a lot of grief on here but at least like Brook they didn't shy away from a big challenge even if it was a cash out it still takes some balls.
