Discussion of Styles

Normally I try to make an effort to describe a fighter's style with a bit of depth, throwing in the best wins on his record too, of course, but not getting too carried away with 'A beat B and B beat C, so A would also beat C.'

But then boxing is a hard one to gauge because it's not quite as statistical as some other sports.

 

I agree that further analysis that goes beyond quick boxrec searches, could be conducted more often. Sometimes debates begin with a stylistic discussion, but transforms into an argument about who fought who. I have been just as guilty of it as anyone here, and in truth, most of us have done it. I will say that sometimes a stylistic comparison is not always enough though.. A fighter's style, skills and physical abilities are sometimes only as good as who he has tested them against, and that's where competition comparisons often come into play... The point of this thread is well noted however.

 

You do, you're good at it too.

 

I think there is a difference between people that watch boxing and actually understand whats involved in boxing, ie, styles, and stylistic matchups.
Max Kellerman is a perfect example of this and he is a tv personality. He is a wealth of statistical knowledge, but he does not understand the mechanics of boxing, and when he tries to comment on it, it usually makes no sense.

 

Oh ta mate, you too as it goes. And Sweet Pea (of the regulars, there are some occasional posters who are very wise). I rarely see you analyse a fighter's style, but in a debate you seem to find just the right little bits of information that can swing it around.

 

Well, maybe a few years ago. Those crazy days of 2005/06 when we argued nearly every day.

 

I used to come on and see that you'd replied.

'Ah ****' :yep

 

:thumbsup

 

He has some horrible scorecards too

 

I think there is abit of discussion on the boxers but not enough

 

A lot of posters would rather discuss how much fighters earn or are too busy involved in petty arguments that last 19 pages long..... **** ol to do with the actual thread.

Bull****.

 

I'll admit, Im pretty much in Kellerman's boat. I try not to do the whole "who beat who thing" or just judge a guy from boxrec.

 

I might be puzzled about why anyone would care that much about threads which ran pages which they do not care about. Different strokes for different folks. As for musty facts, that is history, whether boxing and any other. Take a Civil War class and see how often musty facts about battles, generals, strategy, tactics, weapons, etc, come up.

I am probably one of the worst, if not the very worst, of the musty fact miscreants. Well, this is only the third thread of the first two pages I have posted on. Chris asked for opinions for the top three opponents Jack Johnson defended against and I gave my opinion. I was active in a Jeffries versus Dempsey thread. I don't see how one could contrast these two in accomplishment without reference to the records. That is why records have always been kept, record books published, and on-line sites such as Boxrec so popular. The records are the skeletons of accomplishment. Scientists can tell a great deal about an animal from just the skeleton and without the skeleton would probably have difficulty figuring out what they were looking at. Flesh and blood makes things more interesting but there still should be a place on a history forum for musty skeleton studying.

There are many threads active all the time. Different strokes for different folks.

 

My guy was short for a HW, but with a natural stockiness that would have made it rough for him to be anything else. He had good speed for his body type, both in his feet and hands, and in his early fights, that together with his natural power was more than enough. But as he fought further up in the ranks, and as he faced a higher caliber opponent, we'd need something else. To my and his good fortune, right off the bat I saw something special in this sensitive kid. Call it a fire, a desire, passion, hate, but this kid had it in spades. But the flip side of that particular asset was it could turn on him at the most crucial times.

We'd need to go inside on the guys we'd face in there, rangy heavies with a lot of bang on the end of their shots. But as sure as we knew we were in this game to win we'd have to turn a flaw into an attrbute. Make something out of nothing. It's one thing for a swarmer to go inside, using angles and head movement to slip the big shots; but what we had to do was go in like a bat outta hell. Use not just head good head movement, but good upper body movement. And the big thing, the important thing for us was to throw shots off that movement, and use that momentum to cut these gigantic cocksuckers down to size. This is how we had to fight, this is what made it work for us. And it did work for a good while, for years after I was out of the picture. And wouldn't you know that what did us in, in the end, was not our game inside the ring, but all the **** my kid brought with him when I got him. All the **** from his childhood that he had a helluva time getting over. Hey, I loved all of my guys, and that was the way I handled them. I damn near adopted some of these kids. But if I'm gonna be honest here, I have to admit I had a soft spot for this kid. Maybe it was the exact quality that did him in that touched me in the first place, some vulnerability in the kid. If I coulda hung around down there a while longer, who the hell knows? Maybe I could have saved him from the parasites, and from himself too.


I know this isn't exactly what you were looking for J. But what the hell, it's Saturday morning and I'm hungover. But I think your point is a good one. I think the most interesting thing we could do on here is dissect fights, and fighters. I'd like to see some threads where the OP posts one round of a fight at a time. What would be best but probably difficult is to post round by round of an unknown fight, and let us tear it apart on a stylistic basis. We could even bet, with the OP laying the odds and taking the action, laying off to other posters if he had too much exposure. Joking on that last one, kind of.


Maybe this is a self-serving wish for me, as my strength is not looking at the game historically. I'm not a boxrec guy, and I haven't studied careers the way some guys on here seem to have. But in all fairness I'd say there is something to that approach, just not one that interests me much. If I have a good angle on this thing, I probably have a fair eye for the game, and so of course that's where I'd like to take it.