This crossed my brain for some reason and I came up with a off-the-top-of-my-head list of guys whom I couldn’t remember ever facing the same foe twice and when I looked them up … they all had at least one rematch on their ledgers. There’s no particular point to this, no agenda about ducking people who gave them a close/controversial fight or anything like that. No motive behind the question, just an offbeat, trivial pursuit to see if we can come up with a list of sorts. Ground rules: 1) Had to have had at least 40 professional bouts 2) Amateurs don’t count — neither facing the same foe multiple times in the amateur ranks nor facing someone as a pro whom they also fought as an amateur; we’re looking for fighters who never faced an opponent twice in their entire professional careers 3) A rematch is a rematch — as long as the bell sounds and the fight started, it doesn’t matter if a bout was declared a no contest or whatever, that opponent can’t appear on a fighter’s resume another time 4) No active fighters — if they’re still fighting, they could eventually still have a rematch I couldn’t come up with anyone. Can you?
I don’t recall Vitali Klitschko having fought the same fighter twice in his career. Although a rematch against Lennox Lewis would have been possible but Lewis decided to retire after beating Vitali Klitschko.
I don't think that Ayub Kalule ever rematched anybody. He generally either won by like eight rounds or got knocked out (in fact he never lost a decision), and he wasn't some big drawing card, so there was never a demand for a second go-round.
Maybe Dave Boy Green, it's hard to search for a fighter that doesn't rematch even for a single bit. Edit:maybe Barry McGuigan too.
Brian Nielsen, Tony Tubbs, James Tillis, Tyrell Biggs, Larry Donald, Jose Ribalta, Tommy Morrison, Kimmuel Odum, Carl Williams... Kinda just passing over these guys records once or twice and seeing what comes to me, some of these might be wrong- But I feel like a lot of pros can fall into this. There's nothing that really connects most of these fighters, but you can feel a certain air off of their names when you line em up like this. Just, "Hey, this list looks like it makes sense."
Ike Quartey never had a rematch, from what I see (I checked his early career to make sure). @SixesAndSevens Larry Donald fought Will Hinton twice. Brian Nielsen fought Dicky Ryan twice.
Several of my near-misses had a repeat opponent early in their careers. Some of that could be ‘first fight was pretty good/close, let’s do it again,’ sometimes it’s down to just being a small local card and the opponent was available. Having been involved in club shows in my days as a manager/trainer, you had a certain few guys on ‘speed dial’ within driving distance who would come to the rescue day of fight if needed. Sometimes you might even bring them in for the show for a couple hundred bucks and a hotel room with a pre-negotiated price if they had to step in (maybe 6-round money for a 4-round fight plus keep the couple hundred bucks for being there), especially if you had a guy you knew would give good effort at a weight where he could fill if any of two or three fights fell out — like a guy who weighs 165-ish and you’ve got two middleweight undercard fights and a light heavyweight bout. Commissions would usually allow you to weigh him in and do the paperwork so he’d be certified if anything happened.
