Catastrophic Career Decisions

The first thing that comes to mind is how many of these truly mattered? Frazier was always going to be demolished by Foreman for example.

 

Sugar Ray Robinson outsmarting himself during negotiations for Carmen Basilio III. Had offers of $500,000 on the table from Paris and Rome. Then I believe it was a NY offer for the unheard of amount of 750K. He said no. George Gainford said, "What do you want?" Ray uttered the words, "One million $!!!!!" The NY offer came off the table as did the Euro offers and he lost his title in his next defense to Paul Pender for $50,000.

 

A lesser known one would be Ray Mercer taking a tuneup fight against Jesse Ferguson, cost himself a guaranteed world title shot at Riddick Bowe.

 

Most bad career decisions are when fighters move up or down into the wrong weight classes. One that comes to mind is Vassily Jirov trying to compete at Heavyweight after having success at Crusierweight. He walked around at just over 200 pounds and easily could have had a longer career against the post James Toney Cruiser's. Instead he looked pudgy against Mesi and Moorer and didn't have the same power that he had south of 200. When he tried to move back down after the loss to Moorer it was to late. Very few guys can move back down in weight successfully. He could had some fantastic fights with Mormeck, Bell and Haye.

 

Curry failing to vacate his Welterweight titles and jumping to 154 lbs. in Summer 1986.

 

Matthew Saad Muhammad failing to fight some overrated WBC stiff like Mustafa Wassaja or Jerry Celestine in December 1981 when a unification fight with Michael Spinks was all but sewed up, and instead fighting Dwight Braxton.

 

Felix Trinidad fresh off of knocking out Fernando Vargas moves up to 160. He had only been at '54 about a year (3 fights) Reid, Thiam, Vargas. He was the #1 P4P fighter in the world could have ruled Jr Middleweight and waited for Mosley and DelaHoya to move up.

So instead he fights destroys Joppy @60 picks up a belt but now has to fight Hopkins tp unify. A horrible matchup for him for less $ than he could have gotten.

 

Strike when the iron is hot!

Kennedy McKinney and Tracy Harris Patterson were co-champs at super-bantam. They had made a number of title defenses and were both poised to make mega-bucks in a unification bout. Instead they farted around, farted around and farted around and both lost their titles to Vuyani Bungu and Hector Acero-Sanchez respectively within a week of each other for peanuts. Needless to say no one was trying to arrange a Bungu-Sanchez unification.

One more. Too many fighters can't handle that loss. They take the easy way out by saying, "Uh, yeah, I had a hard time making the weight. Yeah, that's the ticket, I couldn't make the weight and from now on I'm moving up." This is what Meldrick Taylor said after his bout with Julio Cesar Chavez. And he did. Moved up to 147 and won a belt there and then tried 154. Lost to Norris and then lost his welterweight title to Espana. With no where else to go, hey, suddenly, he can make 140. But instead of making that mega-buck immediate rematch money, he makes 140 four years later. I'm sure it was a decent payday for a guy on the downside, but nowhere what he could have made.

 

Riddick Bowe not taking the chance to fight Lennox Lewis after his career best title winning performance against Evander Holyfield in 1992. Personally I thought had they met in early 93’ that Bowe would have edged it. Instead he became overweight and complacent and after having 2 easy defences, lost the rematch against Holyfield. Could have changed the whole course of his career (and probably that of Lewis as well) had they fought as originally scheduled.

You could tell from Bowe’s reaction to seeing Lewis recently at the Wilder/Fury fight that its still eats away at him, the fact that they never fought.

 

Writing indirectly about Riddick; I remember Alex Garcia turning down a move by Bowe's management to have a title shot, for the honourable reason that he felt needed more fights before being ready. He was right, he was duly flattened by Journeyman Mike Dixon and did not recover career wise.

 

I guess it was probably just desperation, he probably needed it.

 

Bob FItzsimmons also fought on way too long, and it must have contributed to his early death. Probably another case of someone who needs the money turning to the one thing they know. I guess not managing his money was maybe the real bad decision.

 

Ad Wolgast, just in general. Far too much punishment with far too little recovery for anyone to handle.