Should we blame duckers more for bad/mediocre resumes?

Yes and NO!

you can't necessarily blame the Fighters, though some most definitely are equally blameable,

but mostly the Blame falls on their Owners & Handlers who hold all the power & see to it that their own financial interests are protected... equally there are others who fall in too the Pipers March.

 

I think we should blame champions because they have a responsibility to the sport to take on challengers. They are the ones dictating the path the sport takes and they effect everyone else.

But for non champs its unreasonable to expect fighters to risk their careers challening themseves before they "made it". They could lose everything with untimely loss. They don't owe anyone anything.

 

I can only rate a fighter on who they fought, everything else is speculation. I cannot give a guy credit for being ducked.

 

a lot of Ducking is actually found in documented contemporary reports, particularly before televised or modern day Live or Taped Interviews, when all the current events were written & recorded.

and Thank GOD for that!

 

Yes, we have it easy today

 

It's a matter of degrees. There is certainly a mark on Dempsey's legacy. He had more than ample time and opportunity to face Wills. In other cases, there were smaller windows, two ships passing in the night.

 

A true duck of a big money fight or a fight tha results in a champion dropping a belt to fight a crappier opponent should be weighed into resume.

An example of the former would be Canelo avoiding Benavidez (although he was the smaller man) and latter would be Foreman dropping a belt to avoid Tucker and fight Schultz.

 

It's an interesting question. Also, of us fans forget in the end that what's most important to fighters isn't belts, or legacy, but MONEY. If a boxer is getting paid well to fight a soft opponent, you really can't blame him.

 

I think the proliferation of world title versions, competing networks and rival promoters has created a sport where the idea of contenders is no longer the same and world titles are largely meaningless.

Virtually any fighter with something about them won’t be a contender for long as they’ll hold some world title strap, so it becomes about unifications as well as promotional deals. The sport has got into a place where the alphabet organisations and the promoters plus TV networks dictate the terms of engagement.

In that scenario, the fighter has to have some serious leverage to be able to dictate terms, but most fighters are just pawns in the game. So, I don’t really blame them for not facing opponent X or opponent Y because they are being pulled in different directions by those competing interests.

Every now and again, the stars align and we get the fight that we wanted (albeit usually a little past its sell-by date) but the idea that the fighters are calling the shots is only true in a very few cases where they have genuine star power that can influence negotiations.

 

I tend to pay more attention to the possible opponents not fought than the actual opponents fought. This is where styles and being a road warrior and other things can and do come into play.

 

or even before they become a Champion by being 'protected' on the way up dodging Fighters they were supposed to face in Contention and/or Elimination Bouts, the Rules of Play are written even though the Business & Powerbrokers ignore, manipulate or buy their way past them. It should still raise eyebrows and scar Duckers Resumes & Legacy and likewise raising the Burley's.

 

I doubt Tucker was better than Schulz at that time.
Perhaps Foreman's main motive was avoiding dealing with Don King?

 

Well, we are watching boxing in an era where a fighters "0" means everything. this is an era where fighters not only ask for easy fights, they ask for easy sparring. This is an era where all fighters are, in essence, managed for one cash out payday; no risks are taken. This is an era where almost every fight is fixed, not by strong arm threat but by the matchmaking. You end up with guys at the top that have never been in a tough fight and don't want to be in one and, if the fighters are willing, the people behind them are not.
If you are fighting in an era of fighters that aren't ambitious, are not willing to risk losing in the pursuit of gaining more, how can you have a great resume? You can have a bunch of guys that were 23-0 with 21 kos and never fight a good fighter.