Bad Assumptions: When Picking a Perceived Shot Fighter and it Blows Up in Their Face.

I love it when a Promoter decides on a fighter for their up and coming young star to feast on, or their faded star to have his comeback fight with, isn't quite as shot as they think he is. This happens all the time, a fighter is chosen because he lost his last match, sometimes by a very large margin and without proper assessment they are perceived to be a fighter on the decline and having far too much faith in their star, they choose him and it all goes wrong for them. Levels are never seemingly taken into consideration when choosing the fighter, they never seem to take the time to think that, maybe the fighter they are going up against lost to a fighter that is far superior to their young upstart. Yet this same scenario tends to repeat itself routinely multiple times a year and the promoters never seem to learn from their mistakes, and to try to think things out a little more thoroughly.

Some Examples
Marco Antonio Rubio The handlers of David Lemieux made a very fateful decision in picking Veneno as his first step up in competition, by making a bad miscalculation. They assumed that Rubio was an easy win after being shut out from the beginning all the way to his corner recommended stoppage at the hands of Kelly Pavlik. Pavlik did not drop Rubio, but he was never in the fight and had no chance of a win on points and was just taking far to much punishment. Never seeming to take into consideration that Lemieux at the tender age of 22 was not remotely on the Level of Kelly Pavlik, and it backfired on them. Just because the Lineal Middleweight Champion at the time beat Rubio didn't mean some punk kid like Lemieux could. But thankfully Lemieux learned from his experience it seems.

John Molina Jr. Golden Boy assumed that by picking Molina even after scoring his last round amazing comeback KO of Bey that he would be easy pickings for monster hitter like Lucas Matthysse, he was after all KO1 by DeMarco. But what they didn't take into consideration was the DeMarco fight was a fluke, and that the majority of opponents who beat Molina outpoint him and don't engage, Klimov beat him in that manner, Lundy was winning and engaged and got KO'd, Bey was winning he engaged and got KO'd, John is incredibly heavy handed and anyone who engages with him in a fire fight will possibly lose. Lucas almost got embarrassed for that very reason, he likes to engage and came close to paying the ultimate price.

Mauricio Herrera No one ever looks good against Mauricio, which is why I knew he would give Danny a very hard time and beat him. The losses that Herrera had suffered in the previous few years, weren't properly assessed, his loss to Alvarado was an absolute FOTY contender war, it was a very close slugfest that while he lost he looked good in losing. Then the loss to Mayfield was basically because Mayfield held and smothered and got off his shots and didn't let Herrera land his, he outhustled him that night, in a match which Herrera while still putting up a good fight seemed to be off of his game. Danny never even considered that this iron chinned worker bee would even have a chance, never taking into consideration how awkward, hard to hit, and how good at making opponents look bad Herrera truly is. Then Arum goes and makes the same mistake, what did he think, that Benavidez is a level above Danny, never having fought someone even remotely decent, terrible idea.

Andrzej Fonfara Assuming the previously KO'd by Dereck Findley fighter was a soft touch, they chose him as Adonis' cherry pick that almost went wrong. Thinking that since he'd been KO'd in the past and his obviously long neck which leaves him an easy target for head shots, would be a thrilling new addition to Adonis' burgeoning list of highlight reel KO's. Never taking into consideration how young Fonfara was and how much he may have improved since, he stopped Campillo by way of KO granted after Kovalev had, but still impressive nonetheless and he also has a KO of recent Dawson beater Tommy Karpency as well as a UD over, that maybe should have been a draw, road warrior Glen Johnson. So Fonfara's resume was quite a bit better and his losses were in the distant past and he'd obviously improved greatly since his early shortcomings. He came close to being the Lineal LHW Champion because of a Bad Assumption.

Luis Collazo Why of all people did they pick Collazo a skilled and talented fighter that while not great is really good at making fighters like Berto and Hatton look bad and almost beating them, to be the comeback fight after a year and a half layoff for Vicious Victor Ortiz. Ortiz who has always struggled with pure boxers like Peterson and looked average against Lopez before Josesito broke his jaw. Collazo had been very active the preceding year and a half, beating 3 fighters while Victor was on the shelf. Victor was rusty and rushed in and paid for it against the fresher fighter with the sharper skills. They should have put him in with an Upsher that Collazo had previously beaten to at least warm Victor up, like they just did with Perez, also Collazo likes to capitalize on his opponents mistakes and Victor makes quite a lot. Another Bad Assumption.


Do any of you have any Good Examples?????

 

:goodGreat Example

 

That's why I said it was a bad assumption to perceive they were shot:good

 

Quillin fighting Rosado was almost a disaster, and its evidently stolen his confidence.