I've wondered at times whether that partly comes from the different experience of facing a guy you can beat versus a guy who crushes you. If an opponent is genuinely more skilful by enough of a margin, you might not understand what he's doing to you, and why nothing in your game seems to click. But if the skill level is closer (or if he's old enough to give you the margin of error to see what he's doing, as opposed to just overwhelming you), maybe you come away from the fight with more appreciation of his tricks. That's just a speculative theory, though.
Tyson did no threw an overhand right, he threw a 1-2 combo, a left jab (which basically had no power in it and was just for setup), followed by a short straight right. Shavers got to put all his bodyweight behind the punch, Tyson didn't.
Get real. Cooper hurt Ali way more with a single punch, and that Ali hadn't been through any wars unlike the 75 Ali. Ali was not hit flush with big punches by those fearsome punchers (Liston and Foreman)
You're welcome. I figured it was best to check and see whether it was your work, just to make sure I didn't say anything that might be taken as insulting. My take on that blog entry -- which is clearly part of a larger system of interpreting boxing -- is that it fetishizes numbers in a field that isn't (yet?) well adapted for that kind of approach. Heavyweight pro boxing is a risk averse field where contenders spend more time talking and knocking over inferior opponents than actually fighting each other. Their promoters also manipulate their ratings and records to a ridiculous degree. Consequently, it doesn't seem (to me, a non math major) that you have enough data on Earnie Shavers to draw the statistical conclusions he's drawing. He also appears to be assuming some kind of parity between historical eras and their conditions. That would need to be argued for. The approach that most boxing fans use -- and probably most gamblers and matchmakers -- is more "subjective", but it relies on tried-and-true human pattern recognition that works pretty well for most historical tasks. And, indeed, most tasks in general. What this guy is apparently trying to do is develop sociological laws of boxing, and it's ignoring the context in a very context heavy sport. By contrast, his method reaches conclusions that seem bizarre and unrecognizable to most people in the field he's analyzing. They also diverge from what the actual people who got punched by Shavers reported. These guys may not be "objective" reporters, but they are the only measuring devices you have around, barring a later discovery that Shavers was punching a calibrated force plate.
This is a good indication of what I'm talking about above, with my criticism of the boxing stats guy. Your post is pointing to your own observations of the fight itself on film. You are weighing the visual evidence, trying to figure out how hard these guys hit Ali, to put Shavers's punches in context. How hard, or how clean, a punch looks on 70s film isn't more solid as evidence than guys like Cobb telling you how hard he thought Shavers hit him. Nevertheless, you correctly trust the rules-of-thumb you've developed while watching and analyzing boxing. You believe that they will give you an accurate picture of Shavers's power. At least when combined with other contextual stuff, like who he's fighting, what stage his opponent's career is at, etc. This is very different from feeding weights and round lengths into an Excel file like the boxing stats guy appears to be doing.
You spoke my mind. It's kind of a silly premise to begin with, and the stats are invalid due to excluding eminently important, inherently capricious variables...such as rigorous contextualism.
I notice this thread has brought out certain people here whose seemingly main reason for being here is to be naysayers to boxing wisdom that has accrued well over a century of the sport. On the other hand, without some sort of dissent this forum would be very boring. However, it's often amusing to witness the Relentlessly, Willfully Contrary.
One thing I'd like to point out, that has been said here a while back by another poster (can't remember exactly who): when Shavers punched, he usually put everything he had into his punches, all his bodyweight. This generates a lot of power, but it also leaves you vulnerable in case you miss, off balance and easy to hit/counter. Other top HWs don't usually do that unless they have their man hurt. But if they did, their punches would also be a lot harder.
