Cherry picks gone wrong

Hi Noel.
Welcome back from your sojourn. good pic, continuing the WW theme, nearly all mags and pundits had Napoles winning comfortably over Backus, and I am sure Jose felt the same, but Billy had some of his uncles grit in him.
stay safe buddy, chat soon.

 

I show my friends who are casual fans a lot of boxing highlights and they laughed hard at that part.

Morrison-Bentt is definitely the first to come to mind

 

This was the first fight I thought of when I saw the title of this thread. I don't think a failed cherry pick has ever resulted in more drastic consequences for both fighters' careers as much as that one did.

Ezzard Charles giving Walcott another title shot after already beating him twice probably qualifies as well. Charles would later admit that he was just looking to give Walcott a "retirement present," but ended up giving him so much more.

Not sure if Duran qualifies as a cherry pick for Buchanan, but the Scotsman's people certainly weren't expecting to be sharing the ring w/ one of the 10 best fighters of all time that night. Davey Moore's people certainly thought they were getting a cherry w/ Duran though.

 

Mark Kaylors' camp picking Buster Drayton.

Same camp picking Bonecrusher Smith for Frank Bruno.

Both fights were on the same night.
A matchmaking disaster !

 

Ray Leonard Hearns 2 and again with Terry Norris

 

Hill vs Hearns

 

It cost Morrison something like $10m didn’t it?

 

Wilder didn’t think Fury was washed up, certainly not after their first fight which imo would’ve been a better qualification for this list.

 

Very, very good call. Lewis vs Rahman is another one

 

I don’t see how wilder fighting fury at all would have been considered a Cherry pick. Sure fury took a lot of time off but he was an undefeated linear champion who was younger than Deontay with height, reach, weight and even better experience. And nor did that first fight go “ horribly wrong “ either. It was a close match

 

Donald Curry v Rene Jacquot

 

As crazy as it seemed even at the time (& even moreso in retrospect), Tua's people thought they were getting an easy pick w/ a 235-pound, unbeaten mountain of muscle Ibeabuchi.

 

I wouldn't pick their first fight either as a cherry pick, but it's definitely a better option than their second fight.

Wilder knew Fury would at the very least run him close, and gave him a rematch as a courtesy due to their first bout. It definitely was not a cherry pick.

 

LHW champ Gus Lesnevich had an all-but-guaranteed shot at Joe Louis' HW title in the bag when he traveled to the UK for one last payday/warmup vs. local hero Freddie Mills. He ended up losing his title & the Louis shot along w/ it.

 

Both my local Indianapolis area heroes as a teenager got beat as undefeated fighters by setup scrubs who were supposed to be easy career building "Cherry Pick" wins on the road to an eventual fight between them (that never ended up happening). Sammy Nesmith got whacked by Raul Aguirre and Gary Guiden got ko'd by Donnie Meloncon. Both of these were shocking losses locally at the time and inexplicable. Nesmith got the rematch win over Aguirre and got the step-up fight with Meloncon and knocked him out too.