Every Wednesday ESB will feature a new published letter directly from hardcore fight fans just like you! For those fight fans who don’t like what the average boxing scribe has to say, there’s only one way to get your point across…..SOUND OFF! Send all ‘Open Mic Fan Mail’ letters to wallace@boxing247.com, and remember, there are 3 simple rules to the game: Keep content short and concise, profanity free, and don’t be shy…..just shine….the mic is yours!. Today’s segment comes from Rodney P. (Roanoke Rapids, NC):
Mr. Wallace,
I am an avid supporter of the sport of boxing with my favorite fighters being Muhammad Ali and Floyd Mayweather Jr. While there are no real knocks on Ali, the knock on Floyd has always been about him ducking fighters who could defeat him.. While I don’t agree with those claims, why don’t boxing fans ever talk about two of the sweetest (pun intended) fighters of the past ducking other elite fighters, namely Sugar Ray Leonard ducking Aaron Pryor and Sugar Ray Robinson ducking Charley Burley?
Pryor, who defeated Leonard nemesis Tommy Hearns in the amateurs and reportedly gave Leonard hell in amateur and professional sparring sessions, confronted Leonard at a press conference and said he “didn’t have anything else to prove in the junior welterweight ranks and why shouldn’t he come up to welterweight so they could fight each other? Leonard basically brushed him off without giving an answer. There’s video evidence of this on Youtube under HBO Legendary Nights: Pryor-Arguello.
I’ve heard that Robinson’s management told Burley’s management that Robinson was “too pretty” to fight Burley. Why didn’t these legends of the ring (Robinson, Leonard) toss it up with these other legends? Was it business? Was it because they feared losing? Why don’t we criticize them the way we criticize other fighters (namely Floyd) for ducking? I know it’s easy to hate Floyd because of the villain role he plays, but why do some in the media not bring up these facts on these other fighters?
Rodney P.
Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina
RESPONSE:
Rodney,
I’ve always said the ‘game’ has never changed…..only the players who play it! I can’t say definitively that EVERY fighter has had a certain nemesis who had a way to practically stop them dead in their tracks, but truth be known, such a statement holds valid weight, and there are many fights we have never seen, yet would have loved to, for this very reason. As we look at the evolution of the sport, another thing I find funny which ties into your thoughts on this matter is the fact that there was far less money and all of the other ‘extras’ involved in the sport back in those days, so when you saw men shy away from another opponent, it was definitely genuine fear. Now days, a fighter may not necessarily be afraid to face an opponent, but the risk associated with losing a potential huge payday is often enough to prevent a fighter from taking a certain fight.
Not only that, but in the minds of the promoters/managers, the fighter is the business, and considering the era we now live in, no one is gonna do anything to allow their ‘business’ to be compromised. In example: Lucian Bute is an amazing fighter, but knowing greener pastures may await somewhere up the road, his promotional team seems far less inclined to allow him to face a potentially dangerous Jean Pascal, right now. David Haye is another example. Amazing talent….he isn’t undefeated, but the stories about him going into sheer seclusion after his initial career loss proved the misery and humiliation associated with defeat to be near deadly. After the ultimate promotional stunt – by way of shirts bearing severed heads of the K-Bros and so forth – he walked away from a fight that he had promoted beautifully for what could be viewed as fear of humiliation and loss of future opportunities. Floyd Mayweather jr. may have the concern of losing his “undefeated identity”, which some allege keeps him from squaring off against Pacquiao.
Pacquiao could fear losing his home-built dignity (which to him means more than anything); which is why we don’t see him rush to take a fight like Paul Williams before cashing in on others like Margarito. See how easy that was? We can play that game all day long! Bottom line, fighters not taking fights for whatever reasons they decided not to is NOTHING NEW in the sport. Just as these modern day warriors find reasons to humble themselves, so did the ‘great ones’! Ali is one of the few fighters who some would argue took on literally everyone on the radar, but somewhere out there, there’s a hardcore fight fan with a set of details that would lead us to believe there was someone he ducked, too! Leonard, Robinson, Mayweather, Pacquiao, Haye, and the list goes on…….At the end of the day, we can either criticize fighters for who they didn’t fight, or celebrate them for those they did! It’s that simple….
(Vivek Wallace can be reached at vivexemail@yahoo.com, 954-292-7346, Youtube (VIVEK1251), Twitter (VIVEK747), FaceBook, and Myspace)