What do people when talking about 'head to head' on this forum mean? When someone says 'Fighter X was better than Fighter Y h2h' do you mean that X beat Y so he is a better fighter? Or when people say 'I make my lists based on who was better h2h', I'm not sure what they mean. Can someone clarify?
It means that they think Fighter X would have beaten Fighter Y if the two had fought. Ranking by H2H means ranking by fighters’ perceived abilities instead of their “greatness” and accomplishments in their own respective eras.
Simply put it means putting both fighters in the ring together as they are and trying to predict who wins. It's an estimation of a fighter's chances based solely on their skills, attributes, mentality and physical capabilities. Like a lot of things, it's very much a guessing game of course.
Sums it up in a nutshell. I don't think either way of ranking fighters is inherently wrong. Ranking on accomplishments is cleaner and more objective, but can be unsatisfactory when it leads to fighter A being ranked higher than fighter B, when you may believe that fighter B would wipe the floor with fighter A if they had ever fought. The flipside with ranking H2H is that it is hopelessly subjective, and can lead to changing the "rules" to suit the argument. As an example, Roy Jones to my mind is clearly the best fighter to have ever competed in the 168lbs division, and I would favour him in a fantasy match-up against anyone at that weight. However, outside of the win over Toney his resume at 168 is not overwhelming. Sven Ottke has a deeper resume at 168, with a much longer title reign and victories over more world-class opponents. However, I'd rather throw my laptop out of the window than put Ottke's name above Roy in any set of rankings, so I'd apply some H2H fudging to make sure that wasn't the case.
One thing is a list based one their careers and another thing is who would have won h2h. I put holmes over tyson in legacy but tyson would kill him in the ring, yes prime holmes, styles make fights. I put rocky over foreman in legacy but h2h it is a one sided beating
Every time I've made a top 10 or top 20 list of champions or contenders I've always made it on a head to head format. Now this is just my preference. I always envision some grandiose tournament-style duke out with these fighters in their absolute theoretical prime. I have seen lists where everything is measured. Longevity, title defenses, the first to do this, the tallest to do that. To that I say, if your including a fighter because he was good to his mother, stop and think about a Sonny Liston bearing down on you or a snarling Roberto Duran looking at you as prey. You can yell at them that you were the youngest to win a title or you made a lot of defenses and that won't mean squat to them as they're looking to take you out. I have seen lists that include Tommy Burns at heavy and Tom 'Boom-Boom' Johnson at feather. Why? Each time the person making the list stated because they made a number of defenses. But that criteria has holes in it. They could have come up in a weak era or avoided their top contender. You just can't go by numbers. I say the best stats are your baby blues and form your own opinion. I'm long-winded today. Suffice to say head to head is always my preference but everyone has their own criteria.
As long as your criteria is consistent and clear going. I consider your list a (who's the best?) As opposed to Greatness being accomplishments, longevity etc. That's Greatness
Yeah, I guess I've always rated on achievement as it's more tangible. Head to head has always made sense to me when it's two fighters who actually fought each other but using fantasy h2h to rank fighters, whilst fun from a discussion point of view, just seems a bit far-fetched.
Achievements don't fight each other... Placing certain opponents , abilities, skills ,attributes, etc is far more practical then placing achievements which is different for different eras. H2H requires more critical thinking bc it's not just looking up records...that's why most avoid it and do the lazy thing by using who did he beat angle! Lol Of course it's guessing but there's such things as an educated guess/ hypothesis!I then there's ones that really are irrefutable when facts and strong points are overwhelming!
Couldn't disagree more. It's absolutely nothing more than guesswork. Achievement is more quantifiable. Saying you think Muhammad Ali would have beaten Joe Louis, for example, therefore he rates higher all-time is unconvincing. Saying he fought a consistently higher level of opposition to achieve his success is I think at least a valid argument based on what the fighters actually did.
I don't have to think Ali beats Louis...all I have to do is look at Louis's footwork and his fight with Billy Conn to tell you that! Lol Everything else I already explained , you could disagree how H2H is more important in determining who wins but how do you think you would get that outcome without actually using math and the actual fighters themselves?????? Lol
