Most Shameful Ducks In Boxing History

There are complexities in all of these examples.

Let me play devils advocate here.

Sullivan was never interested in the color line, as far as I can tell, until he broke his arm in the Cardiff fight.

He later fought the man who had held Jackson to a draw (Corbett), and felt sufficiently confident to bet his entire purse on himself.

Dempsey signed a contract to fight Wills (having delayed it as long as he could in my opinion), but was obstructed by outside forces.

One offer didn't have real money behind it, and another was blocked by the New York State Athletic Commission.

I think that others have pointed out the holes in the case against Louis.

 

How about Bowe refusing to fight Lewis and then publicly throwing the WBC belt in the trash and fighting Michael Dokes instead. ? Tony Tucker had no business being within screaming distance of a #1 rating

 

Not fighting Tucker has to go down among the "best" ducks really... His seemingly endless time as a mandatory was a farce.

 

They both were bad. But Bowe fought Holyfield instead, whereas Foreman fought Schultz. That’s a big difference.

 

You are going to regret challenging me on boxers, promoters, managers of 1930's to 1943. After the holidays, I'll get back to you.
Have a good day.

 

Louis would not sign to fight Franklin, that is a duck. If you'd like wager on it?

 

No. Bowes next two defenses after holy were Dokes and Ferguson. THEN he fought Evander ( whom he had already beaten ) for a butt load of money. There was no money in fighting Tucker. There was no demand for fighting Tucker. Tony was a manufactured contender in 1995 to get the WBA out of the hands of foreman so that he and Bruce seldon ( another undeserving fighter ) could battle over the vacant title to be easy pickings for Tyson to get a belt right out of jail. Don King knew Foreman would never fight Tucker for no money

 

Jermell Charlo has been ducking Tim Tszyu for years now.

Quack quack.

 

Some believe that absolute avoidance is near impossible to technically prove.

There always seems to be some “out” or “loophole” reasoned for a fighter or Champion for not having faced this, that or the other guy.

Put the onus on the ducked fighter and someone will always find some small detail(s) to justify his preclusion.

Conversely though, a Champ can fight a completely undeserving challenger and get away with it - deemed as a “soft defence”, “tune up” or whatever.

However, relative to a number of other more deserving fighters, that isn’t actually fair.

During Patterson’s reign, Pete Rademacher was awarded the honour of a title shot - while Machen, Folley and Williams were not?

In both individual and broad terms, Patterson’s reign was one of, if not the most, shameful ducks - whether you want to put it on Cus, Floyd or both.

Was Frazier steered away (by Durham) from facing big punchers of the day like Lyle and Shavers? Perhaps.

I believe Yank wasn’t too thrilled at the prospect of Joe having to face Foreman. Just imo, I don’t believe Frazier would’ve baulked at the suggestion of ANY fighter being put before him.

Some fighters/Champs seek out the best and most broad opposition - without looking for and using excuses (including hiding behind their management) to not fight X,Y or Z.

Ultimately, given that type of conduct to seek out all comers, the fighter in question ends up fighting most everyone.

At the end of the day, who did Louis and Ali leave out? No one imo, thereby deserving their ranking at the very top of the ATG tree.

 

I love Larry Holmes as a fighter but he certainly swerved Greg Page when he was the number 1 contender........i don't see Holmes as a coward and he was one of the bravest men ever to step into ring. But i think during the latter part of his reign he made sure to pick the easier route to 50-0.

Ricky Hatton avoided Junior Witter and would always come up with an excuse not to fight him.

 

As I said before, the side-stepping of Jimmy Bivins was probably the worst of all-time. I do get it - that Conn II was going to be box-office magic - but Bivins, on a 23 bout unbeaten streak when the Conn rematch was signed in September of '45, had to have felt aggrieved to seeing that happen. Especially knowing Conn hadn't laced up a glove in 4 1/2 years. But that aside, here are a few more.

Folley/Machen/Williams/Liston - these guys had to be wondering, "What else can I do?" to seeing such sub-standard fighters during the Patterson reign receive title shots. Credit to Floyd who took the bull by the horns and signed to fight Liston who had been in the ratings for the last 4 years.

Ken Buchanan - sat on a rematch contract with Madison Square Garden with no Roberto Duran in the other corner. The NYSAC tried suspending Duran and all types of coercion, but could never get him back to put the title on the line against Buchanan

Jerry Quarry - aside from Ali or Frazier, no one deserved a shot at Big George more than Quarry in the fall of '73, but George opted for the no-hoper Joe Roman, who of course, went out kicking in the 1st round.

Just about all of the above were situations where the manager was running the board. I'm sure the fighter in each case couldn't care less. For example, both Cus D'Amato and Dick Sadler, who were running the show of Patterson and Foreman respectively, were known as cautious managers. When Foreman signed for Roman, the Press was all over Sadler on what a pathetic opponent was signed, and Sadler replied, "If it wasn't him it was going to be Jose Urtain or Larry Middleton." Clearly he wasn't taking chances.

 

As others have already mentioned Bowe ducking Lewis was rather bad. More recently, Amir Khan tried to avoid Kell Brooke for as long as he could.

I'm not sure if you'd call it ducking, but Muhammad Ali didn't look too keen on a rematch with George Foreman.

 

Well, now somebody has brought it up, it would be remiss of me to let this pass.

A classic example for this thread, quite frankly. While Larry Holmes ducked his mandatory, it was hardly a huge fight like Cooney or Coetzee would have been. Still it's a duck, hence the Mallard nickname on here back in the day.

Meanwhile, George was not only the mandatory and the biggest fight out there, but a former champ who went on one of the most sustained campaigns for a rematch there'll ever be throughout late 1975 (when he announced his comeback) through to early 1977 (his Boxing News interview in the January of that year is so damning, he claims Ali was only as important for boxing as Joey Maxim was, bizarrely).

The WBC threatened to strip Ali numerous times for not agreeing to this fight. Of course, after yet another Ali refusal/retirement, George fights Joltin' Jimmy, meets Jesus, Jimmy is rated #1 but loses the eliminator to Kenneth, who becomes mandatory and, the WBC threatens to strip Ali "again" . But, of course the don't.. they strip Spinks immediately though, which at least gave us the Norton-Holmes classic.

 

Bowe refused nothing. Have you seen the way he fights? Have you seen the two Golotoa bouts? That man didn't fear anyone and his style of fighting proved it.
The blame is on the promoters , Newman and King. Bowe simply did what he was told after Newmans negotiations with King and the WBC broke down.
Larry Holmes relinquished his WBC for the exact same reason. Putting ALL the blame on Bowe's side assumes Don King was an honest and fair man.

 

Yes I know it was Newman but it was still a duck