Was Fury a cherry pick gone wrong for Deontay Wilder?

Why can't a late sub be a cherrypick?

Ruiz was seen by Hearn as a credible opponent (world title challenger, only lost a MD in NZ to Parker, had been top 10 Ring ranked) but too stubby, too slow of foot, too featherfisted and too undisciplined (especially on short notice) to have a chance against AJ. That was why Ruiz opened at 10/1 and reached 25/1 close to the fight.

 

Well that's kinda the point isn't it.

AJ and Wilder where the top two for the whole of Furys departure.

But when their fight was there for the taking, it didn't get made, and both got dominated in their next fights.

Ruiz himself wasn't necessarily a cherry pick, he was a late replacement. Fury was the fight Wilder wanted to increase his leverage and force 50/50.

Both guys messed up, horribly. And AJ has been slated in many threads about his decisions, however this is a thread about Wilder.

 

Out of the possible replacements Ruiz was nowhere near the worst. Ortiz was also on the table (but pussed out), then there was Hunter, Kabayel, Charr and I think Trevor Bryan. Hunter or Kabayel might have been good, but no one in the US knew who Kabayel was and Hunter was perceived as high risk/low reward (plus he wasn't nearly as marketable or known as Ruiz). They went with Ruiz for sound business reasons, not because he was perceived as a light touch.

 

What is the contradiction between being a late replacement and being a cherrypick? Ruiz was considered a decent scalp while posing next to no threat. Ruiz is a far better example of a cherrypick than Fury, who had a full camp, was undefeated, higher ranked, lineal/former unified champion and a very close underdog rather than an enormous one. Most people knew that Fury had a good chance of winning, Wilder's team must have known it was a tricky and dangerous fight. It was a calculated risk that would not only increase Wilder's leverage going into an AJ fight but increase his profile and marketability in general.

The spirit of the thread is that Wilder fighting Fury was an example of cowardly matchmaking that backfired. But if fighting Fury in the absence of 50-50 with Joshua was cowardly then practically all matchmaking is cowardly. And in so far as it backfired it backfired due to Joshua losing to Ruiz in a genuine cherrypick gone wrong, which was out of Wilder's control.

 

A late replacement is infinitely better than a card being cancelled. But tbf you could argue Jarrell was a cherry pick in the first place. But a late replacement, like a mandatory, is just part of the hoops fighters have to jump through.

Wilder wasn't cowardly, but he saw Tyson as a stepping stone to securing 50% against AJ. That's the point. And it backfired.

 

I agree with the theory in the title of the post.

Remember how Fury looked like a sheep-in-flabby-wolf's clothing against Pianeta - a fight which went the full 10 rounds?

That was definitely a non-threatening performance from Fury. Remember that Pianeta had actually been stopped by Kevin Johnson (a fighter who scarcely even throws punches) during the past year. So this was just the sort of thing to make Haymon & Di Bella bite on the hook.

A more astute manager probably would have realized that Pianeta had had a long association with Fury family going back to about 2009 or so and was a frequently-used camp fighter for both Tyson and Hughie. So, in effect, they were doing nothing more than putting on a low-intensity exhibition match.

 

I think he wanted to get some rounds under his beltm