How many more pro fights (on average) are we really talking about with the Golden Agers?

Hi again,

It's now been a week since you suggested this - so I'm wondering, how your research into this is coming along?

 

Len Wickwar: "473 bouts, 4,020 rounds 25ish fights a year on average"

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Besides having more professional fights. They have more fights against ranked contenders then their later peers. This was proven in a post someone did (forget who started it now) but we tallied all the ranked fights that occurred that decade and it was obvious 70s down was a lot stronger then modern times. The amount doesn’t matter so much (u make a good point about amateur bouts) but it’s more who u fight

 

https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/fights-between-previous-year-end-top-10-heavyweights.678644/

 

Yeah, I remember that thread - where we both contributed with some FACTUAL research. However, it didn't deal with any of the numbers being bandied about in this thread... without any factual evidence to back them up.

Therefore, I think it would be interesting to find out, if the average number of fights in a pro career, back in the day, really was in the neighborhood of 100, that 10-15 % had in excess of 150 fights... and that on average, a pro fighter had around 50 more career fights than today. It would be interesting to see, if there's any truth to these numbers - or if they are simply taken out of the blue, by a poster who simply wishes it to be so.

But if no one else wants to seriously look into this, I'll give it a go! To examine a group of completely random oldtimers, from back when we hear about these very long careers... I've decided to check out the boxers who fought in August of 1930!

I decided on 1930, as this is the year, where BoxRec lists the most fights, as well as the most active boxers - and since August usually was a busy month (with weather that made outdoor promotions possible), I thought this would be as good a period as any to look into, if we're looking for boxers with a lot of pro fights.

So my plan is to start at the beginning of the month (August 1st), and then work my way through the boxers who were active there, and note how many fights they had under their belt, when they retired.

However, since there were several thousands of boxers, who fought during that month - checking them all out would be incredibly time-consuming. So I want to hear you guys... how big a sample of boxers do you think it's necessary to look into, in order to be able to form a reasonable opinion about the validity of the numbers mentioned in this thread?

Let me hear, what you think.

 

I don't think your original question specified anything about whether or not the fighters in question should be world ranked. Certainly thistle isn't talking about a particular group - but about all fighter and their career totals.

Your suggestion to look at the year-end ranked contenders in the major weight classes for a single year (and the number of fights when they were ranked), is of course a completely different project, to the one I want to find answers to! If we're talking about the major weight classes (I take it the original 8?), this means a total of 80 boxers! This should be a rather easy project - so I hope you'll look into this, and post your findings.

If I go about my own project, as outlined in post #23 - how big should my sample group be, in your opinion? Would 80 (as in your case) be enough - or do you think I need more, to be able to recognize a trend?

 

Ok, you're interested in one kind of statistics, and I'm interested in another. Both are intriguing, imo - so lets do them both!

And again... how big do you think my sample group ought to be?

 

As i have already explained in detail (post #23), I'll start on August 1, 1930 - and then go through the fights, in chronological order, as they are listed on BoxRec. I don't see, how you can get a much more "random" selection of boxers than that.