LEGITIMATE and demonstrable blatant ducks.

It seems that way. Different risk/reward ratio maybe.

 

The bolded bit has to come with the caveats that the challenging fighter has earned the shot (which is a very subjective matter) and that the guy called out has no legitimate reason for not taking the fight (and financial reasons are legitimate in many cases)

This is a general point, I'm not challenging the specifics of the cases you mention BTW.:good

 

..

 

because he chose not to take part in the tournament...

he didn't beat anyone before it, rested on his laurels because he had 'a belt', then stepped up for the first time against froch and got destroyed!

in a world where there are half a dozen 'world titles' for each weight division, bute showed EXACTLY why there are so many bogus 'champions' per weight division

goodnight!

 

I agree it lacks evidences to be called a "blatant" duck.
Here's Shaefer saying they were ready to travel but Hattons Promotions CEO wasn't accommodating at all:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLxLgwDFfJ8

Again, this is just Shaefer's version, but that's the only one we have.

 

Only if he was bullshitting about fighting at HW. Roy hadspoke of fighting Holyfield before his rematch with Griffin, and again afterwards. apparently, Holy wasn't interested in a fight. Then when Nunn became mandatory, Roy vacated his belt, and was all set to fight Buster Douglas, until his Father intervened. I think Roy would have gone through with the fight. I don't think he pretended to want Douglas, just so he could avoid a 35 year old Nunn.

 

Lennox Lewis-

Herbie Hide
Riddick Bowe
Mike Tyson 96
John Ruiz
Chris Byrd

 

Bute wasn't invited to the Super Six. The guy who organized the tournament admitted as such. From here: http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/boxing/news/story?id=5769178

Bute, 30, fought two fights in a row on Showtime, in late 2008 and early 2009, but he was not invited to join the Super Six when Hershman put it together in July 2009. Hershman said his exclusion was nothing against Bute. He said the tournament was very difficult to put together and "the only way to get five promoters and six fighters on the same page was within the existing relationships I had. It wasn't that I didn't think [Bute and Bedard] were worthy or trustworthy. I just didn't have the depth of the relationship I had with the others."

As far as failing the first time he stepped up to the top level, yes its true that Bute did that, but only with hindsight can you use his loss to Froch to discount him as a legitimate opponent for Ward after the Super Six ended.

When Bute tried to get a fight with Ward he was reigning IBF Champion with nine successful defenses to his name, he was widely considered one of the top two in the division for three years running and he had a decent resume (Bika, Joppy, Andrade, Magee and Johnson were all decent world level fighter, not at the level of Froch and Kessler but decent). Compare that to Ward when he got his shot against Kessler - at a time when Kessler was the considered King of the division - who had held no titles at world level, who's best win was Miranda, who wasn't even ranked in the top 10 of the division and was a little known underdog who nobody fancied and, in fact, was the kind of fighter Kessler would have been mocked for fighting if it had happened outside of that tournament.

So you'll forgive me if I think it a little rich for Ward and his fans to accuse Bute of not having earnt a shot against the top fighter in the division in 2011/2012 when he had done a damn sight more than Ward had when he got his shot back in 2009.

And, yes, I dont go in for this "he hadn't earnt it" bull****. Bute was the only challenge with any legitimacy left for Ward in the Super Middleweight division. Froch ruined that but that doesn't change how things were percieved at the time.
​

 

Bute's camp showed they didn't really want Ward when they signed themselves away with a two fight deal with Froch.
They knew Ward was out with injury , but went with Froch who they thought was finished for two easy paydays.

 

N'Kijam was "ordered" to fight Golovkin numerous times but simply ignored those orders. This culminated in him sending a letter to the WBA saying he wouldn't defend his title against GGG. If that isn't a duck, I don't know what is.

 

Not really. Facing Duran x2, an undefeated and underrated Ayub Kalule, and Hearns in short order hardly constitutes a case of ducking another fighter.

I'd actually say that if Leonard "ducked" anyone, it would be Cuevas. The risk-reward ratio for that match-up wasn't considered as great at the time as fights with Benitez and Duran.

 

The second time around, yes, but team Pacquiao walked away from the first negotiations because they couldn't agree to a 15 day blood testing cutoff after publicly stating that they were fine with random testing as long as blood wasn't taken on the day of the fight. There was no dispute over anything else in the contract.

The second time around is when Floyd decided he wanted to cut Arum out of the equation and pay Manny what he thought he was worth, and team Pacquiao decided that Manny had a cut that would take 6 months to heal and that a new stadium had to be built. At that point it was clear to me that neither side was really interested in making this fight and both were just using each others names to market themselves.

 

why all the rhetoric. gbp offered to sit and work out a fair split for both guys, pac fought bradley instead