I will give it a shot: duck-when you choose not to fight an opponent with fear of losing (the main reason being a particular style you arent comfortable with), and choose to fight other fighters who pose less of a threat in the same division. SOME SIGNS OF DUCKING (not always accurate) -When interviewed and the person who is interviewing you ask "why dont you fight him/her", you simply ignore the question and do not give a straight answer. -Talk garbage about the fighter in the paper (even say you will fight him/her), then when it comes to make the fight you back off or give a ridicilous contract that you know the fighter isnt going to accept. -Constantly instruct the fighter to build his/her name up by fighting guys in the division (most of the time its guys you dominated), despite the fighter being the recognized #1 opponent both by the media and fans and having a decent resume and record.
add one. . . -Calling a HOF'er a "sparring partner" and ducking him for a lesser threat . . .Fraud ducking Shane.
When an opponent throws a punch and the other boxer stoops low so that the punch misses and goes above his head. :deal
Not fighting your mandatory whilst hugging the belt is the worst form of ducking. Not fighting your mandatory and dropping the belt rather than facing him is the garden variety.
mundine with kessler - i mean ffs now. :yep mundine has a loss to this guy and now kessler is his mandatory. most fighters would badly want to settle the score. instead he wants to go down in weight. atsch bowe with lewis - lewis was a mandatory and a genuine mandatory contender. he deserved his shot and bowe outright ducked it. :-( ottke with calzaghe - retired without ever entertaining the idea. :bart
there is no clear cut definition. Ducking is not black or white its multiple shades of grey. In my life the only duck that really pissed me off is Casamayor ducking Campbell despite the 50/50 split even though Campbell is WBA/WBO/IBF champ what more could he ask for? A bigger split? More titles on the line? what the ****!!! even the money issue is not a good one, cause Casa might make 2 or 3 hundred thousand more fighting JMM (maybe not even that much) but imagine how much money he would make if he became Ring / IBF / WBA / WBO champ by beating Campbell
But what about certain situations where guys face better opponents? I forgot whom Ike Quartey's mandatory for the WBA was in 1999 (James Page?). But Quartey fought Oscar De La Hoya and was stripped of his WBA belt. Or Roberto Duran being stripped of his belt for not fighting mandatory Mike McCallum. Instead he fought Thomas Hearns. Or Floyd Mayweather giving up the IBF belt when Mark Suarez was the mandatory?
Watch this clip from 6:30 on, and then consider his actions. That will give you a remarkably clear definition of one fighter ducking another. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWDtzdAYTOA
Larry Holmes ducked Pinklon Thomas and Greg Page. Also, Dokes didn't particulary fight certain fighters on the way up.
I think it's usually simple: When a fighter rejects an opponent and hurts financial best interest. There are grey areas, of course, such as when guys price themselves out. Generally, I think most pros will fight anyone, if the dollars are right. The Bowe/Lewis duckjob fits my definiton above and is one of the most famous examples. I used to try to explain that 100,000 different ways to Decebal and others, but they had their minds made up already.