Statistical Analysis: Hopkins, Jones Jr, Toney, Calzaghe

This started off as an on-going argument between me and a friend for many years about who is the better fighter between Hopkins and Jones Jr. Not only head-to-head, but which one fought the better competition and who had the better career.

To settle the argument once and for all I drew up a simple table:

I took their 10 best opponents and awared points (out of 10) for quality going in, and points (out of 10) for overall performance in the fight, and multiplied them together. So a good performance against a top opponent merits more than one against a lesser opponent.

If they fought anyone more than once I took the average pts totals of their combined fights (eg. Jones vs Tarver, Toney Vs McCallum etc)

Finally, I tried to fair and objective (eg. I think the Reggie Johnson who fought Jones Jr was a better fighter than the one who fought Toney), so I awarded points accordingly. Here are the results (apologies, doesn't allow for tabbing. It's easier to read in table format):

Hopkins
Pavlik 8.5 x 9 = 76.5
Calzaghe 9.5 x 6 = 57
Wright 8 x 8 = 64
Tarver 8 x 9 = 72
Taylor (x2) 8 x 7.5 = 60
Eastman 7 x 8 = 56
De La Hoya 7.5 x 8 = 60
Trinidad 8.5 x 9 = 76.5
Glenn Johnson 7.5 x 8 = 60
Jones Jr 9 x 6 = 54
TOTAL 81.5 x 78.5 = 6400

Jones Jr
Tarver (x3) 8.2 x 4.3 = 35.3
Glenn Johnson 8 x 4 = 32
Ruiz 8 x 8 = 64
Woods 7 x 8 = 56
Reggie Johnson 8.5 x 8 = 68
Hill 7.5 x 9 = 67.5
Griffin (x2) 7.8 x 8 = 62.4
McCallum 7 x 8 = 56
Toney 9 x 9 = 81
Hopkins 8.5 x 8 = 68
TOTAL 79.5 x 74.3 = 5906.8

Toney
Holyfield 8 x 9 = 72
Jirov 8 x 9 = 72
Griffin (x2) 7 x 5.5 = 38.5
Jones Jr 9 x 6 = 54
Williams 7 x 8 = 56
Barkley 7 x 9 = 63
DeWitt 6.5 x 8 = 52
McCallum (x3) 7.8 x 7.7 = 60
Reggie Johnson 8 x 7 = 56
Nunn 9 x 8 = 72
TOTAL 77.3 x 77.2 = 5967.5

Calzaghe
Hopkins 8.5 x 8 = 68
Kessler 8.5 x 9 = 76.5
Bika 7 x 7 = 49
Lacy 8 x 9 = 72
Mitchell 7 x 8 = 56
Brewer 7 x 8 = 56
Woodhall 6.5 x 8 = 52
Sheika 7 x 8 = 56
Reid 8 x 7 = 56
Eubank 8 x 8 = 64
TOTAL 75.5 x 80 = 6040

Analysis:

Best overall performance is Jones Jr over Toney with score of 81 pts.
Worst overall performance is Jones Jr vs G. Johnson with 32 pts.

Hopkins fought the toughest competition with total coefficient of 81.5.
Jones Jr in 2nd with 78.92.
Toney 3rd with 77.33.
Calzaghe last with 75.50.

Hopkins has the best overall total vs his 10 best opponents with 6400 pts.
Calzaghe is 2nd with 6040 pts.
Toney 3rd with 5967.5 pts.
Jones Jr trails with 5906.8 pts. The fights with Tarver and Johnson really putting a big dent in his overall score.

re. Hopkins vs Jones Jr. Going into their 1993 fight Jones was the rising star and favourite which is why I rated him 9 and Hopkins 8.5 going into the fight.

Conclusion:

Hopkins is way ahead number 1 and deserves to be ranked above Jones Jr for his consistancy against superior opposition. Although Jones undoubtedly has the biggest single win and best performance, his crushing defeats and overall record leaves him way behind Hopkins .. and even trailing Calzaghe and Toney.

 

Hey Imperial1, you share the same view as my friend. I understand about going up and down the weights deserves credit etc.., but I tried looked at each fight on their own merits. I guess I don't penalize Hopkins as much for his defeats as i do Jones for his. After all they were pretty crushing, whereas Hopkins' losses were close.

 

Going into the fight I would rate Calzaghe as 9 and Jones Jr no more than 7.5. A victory for Jones would be much bigger than one for Joe.

I thought taking their 10 best opponents would give a good measure. We can discount certain fights as being irrelavant - eg B-Hop's debut.

 

OK, I admin a 'slight' bias toward B-Hop!

 

That was a great performance, maybe I did underscore slightly. I was just impressed with his performance against Kessler, because Kessler posed him more problems. Lacy was just a beat-down job.