Champions not fighting contenders

This happens quite often. I have a fighter who moves into the contention spots for, for example, the IBF champion. Nobody else is available to fight him. He has no fight planned. There is no other title involved, so it’s not blocked by requirements. My fighter is only able to challenge the IBF number 12 or lower.

Is this a deliberate thing, or a bug? Why won’t he fight me? I’ve found this especially happens with a dethroned champion, working his way back up to contention after losing his title. It becomes almost impossible to get another shot. I’ve had fighters win six more fights against top ten fighters in a row, yet their ranking still slides and the champion won’t fight them. Eventually they retire without ever getting the rematch, or age and damage taken get to them.

It’s very frustrating, why can an idle, uninjured champion ignore a proper contender in favour of no fight? It seems unrealistic, they’d be stripped of the title in real life.

The only way to really be guaranteed a title shot is to be ranked 1 in all federations. Sometimes you need to take a risk and take on the best available boxer. This usually gets you the ranking spots you need, though is risky.

I believe the thinking is to be close to real life in that you may be too much a risk, may not be profitable enough, champion wants to fight other champions etc. I believe it’s deliberately designed to be random, as is boxing irl.

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