If we didn't count newspaper decisions, how much would the p4p all time list change?

I am confused what this means?

 

Got it. I guess we'd have less information on the earlier eras and hence would have a harder time assessing the worth of fighters from those eras? I tend to not rank fighters before my time anyways though - even those with a robust set of existing film. Just too many unknowns. So my all-time pound for pound list would likely begin with Duran, not Robinson, and certainly not with the likes of Greb, et al.

 

Newspaper decisions relied on reporters subjective opinions to declare a winner when fights went the distance without a knockout. They could be inconsistent as different writers could score the same fight differently based on their bias, expertise, or vantage point.. but they were less susceptible to centralized corruption since no single entity could control the outcome , they also offered a broader sampling of opinions. Are 3 vegas judges wined & dined by promoters & big money really that much better? I think GGG & Kovalev might disagree.

 

Its hard to say because not every decision was a NWS theres a lot of "PTS" too. Its also a 2 way street because fighters are shedding losses. But in general it'd effect the American point fighters from the 1910s the most. So you'd guess Greb would be the biggest victim of this because when you think of those three things you think of Harry Greb. Tunney would lose 12 wins including some important ones like Loughran. Even amongst Americans it really comes down to the jurisdiction a given fighter fought in and timing.


Langford would actually benefit from this. He'd lose more wins then losses(10) but the 10 losses are more important to his legacy while the 20 something wins are more random. Langford would lose many of the Wills losses and a Jim Flynn loss which broke up what would otherwise be a 6 year unbeaten streak. Langford would not just not lose longevity records he might actually gain some new ones because Greb and Stribling are his biggest competition at the higher weight classes and they should both have more NWS wins than Langford.

Some title fights were NWS(where the challenger needed a KO to win) so its hard to remove them without erasing history. If a fighter defended in a NWS loss sure they didn't deserve a title defense but taking that away doesn't repatriate a Stribling or Mickey Walker who was robbed. You aren't righting the wrong there. Them winning a title fight they won without getting the belt is the best way to tell that story.

NWS fights are not exhbition fights that shouldn't be counted because they weren't real fights. They were a consequence of the legalization and regulation process in whatever jurisdiction they occured in.

 

It depends whether we just ignore the unofficial newspaper "decision" and still otherwise have the first hand testimony of what happened in those fights or whether you're asking us to pretend that all no decision bouts that went the distance never happened at all. Huge difference.

Read some of the reports of Greb’s no decision bouts that went the distance, you don't need a green "W" on boxrec against the fight, to form the impression that Greb dominated many of those fights.

 

I don't count them. But no decisions still count as fights. And that counts.

If Greb and Tunney, for example, fight 10 rounds or 15 rounds to a no decision, neither of them gets credit for a win, but they get credit for boxing quality opponent for 10 or 15 rounds.

 

I don't believe in "p4p" so it won't effect that for me.