This is a bit off an off shoot from another thread. Upsets happen. I'll speak for myself. It's not that hard picking the winner in a re-match. But what if Max Schemling who was thought to be past his best in the first fight didn't re-match Joe Louis? What if Ingo avoided Patterson after he defeated him? What if Joe Frazier gave Ali the Sugar Ray to Marvin Hagler treatment and never fought him again after 1971? Was Frazier the Favorite? Sub in Kenny Norton then... What of Rhaman or McCall with the aid of Don King backed out of the re-match with Lennox Lewis? How about Mike Moorer skipping the re-match with Holyfield? My thinking is in all cases the fighter with the lesser legacy take a leap forward and the fighter we know was better legacy takes a hit. Agree or disagree? But what about the fighters who were upset and betting favorites and didn't get a chance for their re-match? Or fighters who lost due to an injury and never got their re-match because the other fighter avoided him? How often does this happen in boxing?
Depends on the avoidance. If the avoiding fighter keeps taking weaker opposition instead of the fighter he owes the rematch he looks pretty silly. If he leaves the weight division behind or even, say, I don't know, retires, I don't think it really hurts the greater fighter. If you got old retire, knowing that you went out with a great victory. No point in a true ATG dragging themselves up just to lose when they've already bested the guy that wants them. For me, anyway.
I've always pointed out that the FIRST meeting between two fighters should usually be weighted as a little more significant. (There are many exceptions, of course.) I do see a lot of bias towards certain fighters when talking about a 1-1 series of two fights, where the favourite was upset and then avenges the defeat. There seems to be a tendency to view the SECOND result as "true representation" and the FIRST as a "fluke". In a few cases that might be correct, but often it's just fans using an openly biased method. Oh, and they have a billion excuses to back it up, of course.
Well, Louis was champion, so his legacy would suffer a bit if he'd have ducked Schmeling. Ingo's problem was probably a soft approach to training once he won the title. So he probably wouldn't have reigned long. Well they still get hammered by Foreman, who probably ends up getting hammered by Ali ... .... and they miss out on the Ali paydays. Well, McCall didn't rematch Lewis straight way. When they did fight again it wasn't a worthy "rematch" at all, it was a ridiculous contest for a "vacant" title really. The whole thing seemed to be concocted around the "rematch/revenge" angle. McCall had issues. And was Frank Bruno's leftovers by then, so kind of lame. I don't know how much losing to Lewis impacts on McCall's mediocre "legacy" anyway. No one was really won over by his performance in the first match. It appeared at the time that Holyfield was either old or injured and the decision in Moorer's favour was debatable. Losing to Holyfield in 1997 does not hurt Moorer at all, also since he'd already been KO'd by old Foreman.
