why shouldn't Newspaper Decisions count as Legit Wins?

Are you referring to BoxRec's new policy of not including NWS wins/losses in a boxer's overall record (even though those wins/losses are included in his list of fights)?

 

They were NO DECISION matches. People can argue all they want about "newspaper decisions" but the fact is there was no official decision when they went the distance.

The record books should show WINS, LOSSES, DRAWS, NO DECISIONS, NO CONTESTS as distinct and seperate.

 

I agree.

 

Newspaper decisions werent official decisions but idiots who disregard them completely are exactly that, idiots. The same people will ***** and moan ad naseum about bad decisions rendered by official judges but then complain about a decision by a consensus of reporters who had been studying the sport first hand most of their lives. In short there is a double standard there. So no, they shouldnt be given official status but if fighter A fought fighter B in a ND bout and 20 out of 22 local newspapers said fighter A won the fight then to ignore that is pretty pathetic. Ive heard this asinine logic applied to Greb's record "he fought so many ND bouts theres no way to tell if those reporters were paid off" Greb dominated his opponents with such alarming regularity and won the vast majority of newspaper decisions so consistently from Southern California to the New England Coast and from New Orleans to Canada that he couldnt have possibly been able to afford to pay all of those newspapermen to write glowing copy about him. Its just ridiculous. Given that most of the guys in that era had 100 fights or more its ridiculous to suggest that all of those newspaper decisions are the result of biased, ignorant, or bought off reporters. If that were the case the inaccuracy of such reporters would have quickly necessitated their rejection by the public at large and nothing of the sort happened, ever. So hemming and hawing about their validity, while necessary on a case by case basis, is a fools errand when broadly generalizing the entire era. The fact remains that newspaper decisions were the rule, not the exception, and the results of those decisions were used for gambling, to determine who the best fighters were, who got title shots, etc. If, as some would like to believe, they were glorified exhibitions then those fights and those newspaper decisions wouldnt have carried the weight they did. The people who cant grasp that fact have obviously spent very little time studying the era.

 

True they were "no decision" matches. But that doesn't mean they were no—how should I put this?—no-effort, or no-official outcome displays. If you recorded a knockout, then you received just that: an official KO. If George Chip knocks somebody out in Round 10, it doesn't mean the previous nine rounds were a tea party. They were still fighting. And how they looked and performed could and did earn them bigger opportunity and paydays.

 

Wouldn’t a guy or both guys fight differently and attack in different ways if they knew there would be no decision in the fight than they would if there was one. I agree they can tell us something about the fights and fighters. But to tell 2 guys outside of a KO there is no judging is not fair to them to count a criteria against them that they did not even know existed.

 

The results should be recorded and referred to as NO DECISIONS. Not "wins" or "losses". That's the point.
Newspaper accounts and unofficial "decisions" are worthy footnotes, yes.

You say here :
" The same people will ***** and moan ad naseum about bad decisions rendered by official judges but then complain about a decision by a consensus of reporters who had been studying the sport first hand most of their lives. In short there is a double standard there. So no, they shouldnt be given official status but if fighter A fought fighter B in a ND bout and 20 out of 22 local newspapers said fighter A won the fight then to ignore that is pretty pathetic."

Which is all very reasonable.
But in another thread, for a fight for which we have footage, and for which a majority found McFarland as a winner, you suggested :

"The newspaper accounts on this fight are beyond puzzling. I have most of the fight. 30 minutes give or take. Gibbons was the aggressor, threw more, landed more, and landed the harder punches. Its mystifying how anyone could score this fight for McFarland. "

So, there you are mystified and puzzled by the scores of the newspaper majority.

In cases of fights we haven't seen, we can't really trust the judges' or the newspapers.
We just don't know. In cases of fights where there are dissenters from the majority verdict we should be even more sceptical of the majority, as you observe they can come up with "mystifying" and "beyond puzzling" versions of events.

 

Exactly, the reality is many of these fighters took the bout to pay the bills. They were there for the money the performance did not matter. Indeed if you have another 10 rounder lined up a few days later, you are going to fight accordingly.

I dare say those who were good at 'winning' newspaper decisions, were decent at sparring too. But I think most here would take what happens in sparring with a pinch of salt...