In this topic, the men who faced challenges when they didn't have to.

Mayweather -- for fighting De la Hoya.
Jermain Taylor -- for fighting Kelly Pavlik.
Cotto and Mosley -- for fighting eachother.
Antonio Margarito -- for defending his belt against the #1 contender after he accused Mayweather for ducking his mandatory.
Joe Calzaghe -- for taking on a less-than-well-known but better-than-all-the-'names' fighter in Kessler.

Who still have to --

Hopkins.
Pacman.

Add your own.

 

Pac-JMM 1
Tito-Winky
Taylor-Pavlik
Lewis-Vitali

 

At what point do you need to fight someone? Pavlik was Taylor's mandatory for months... he fought two #1 elimination bouts.

 

Jake LaMotta - defending his Middleweight title to Sugar Ray Robinson after SRR had beaten him in the previous four encounters.

You WOULD NOT see that nowadays.

And yes, LaMotta lost

 

So now, fighters get extra credit for doing what their supposed to do? I guess when there are guys like Roy Jones, and Benard Hopkins around, who talk about fights more than actually fighting , guys like Cotto and Mosely are elevated to a higher level just for being active and not trying to avoid a tough fight , like most would avoid the plauge.

 

Jones didn't have to fight Ruiz

 

Taylor was offered to fight Calzaghe.

He also had the option to rematch Winky.

Mandatories don't mean a lot these days. Pavlik definitely pose as a hgih risk low reward fight for Taylor and yet he took it. Kudos to him.

 

I think any fight Corrales took had to be a challenge. When he moved up to welterweight and fought Corley that was insane. A true warrior.

 

Yep. I remember clearly Roach was not very happy with Pac's decision to fight Marquez - whom Roach had been saying was a much difficult fight for Pac than MAB or Morales.

 

Fair points. The paydays were great in both cases. Jones was already a first ballot hall of famer without this fight. It was basically a lose, lose situation for Ruiz. If he wins it's a great payday but he did what he was supposed to do to the smaller Jones. We all know what happened.

 

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I could be wrong, but I thought Pavlik was already the #1 contender when he fought Miranda and he didn't need to fight him, but did anyways to cement himself as the #1 contender for both of Taylors belts. If that was the case then he easily wins the contest for fighting a tough fight when he really did not need to.

 

Any fighter worth his salt should want to fight the best. If a champ fights 3 or 4 times a year (like they should) at least 2 of those fights should be against the # 1 and #2 rated challengers.Politics and bull**** abc rankings are ruining boxing.Thats why i like Cotto and Pavlik so much - they want to fight the best out there, theres no ducking,no bull**** trashtalking, they just come to fight

 

Juan Manuel Marquez - for fighting Chris John IN INDONESIA for next to no money.

Sultan Ibragamov has to get props for going after Chagaev and Klitschko. I doubt he'd be the favorite in either fight, and long-term, he'd probably make more money fighting a bunch of scrubs and mandatories like the other heavies have been doing.

 

He was #1, but not the mandatory. The WBC made that fight and the winner was to fight JT.