Does anyone have any fair of way of judging the h2h ability of men with our film. I'm fairly confident with my current rankings based on what I've seen, and I'm happy to defend judging on h2h ability as it's more fun for me. The question is though, when h2h winnability is my sole criteria is there any way I can include those with no film? Obviously a man doesn't magically get better just because he is filmed. Although some do look a lot worse in film (Fitzsimmons and Corbett namely). Thoughts?
It makes a big difference if there is footage of their opponents. To take an extreme example, we have no fight footage of Harry Greb, but excellent footage of many of his key opponents. That makes it almost irrelevant how good he looked doing it.
I was previously wholly against this line of thinking but I'm beginning to warm to the idea. It might just be a lazy cop out saying " no film, no ranking" I'm gonna debate it internally for a while.
For the more popular fighters you can find multiple descriptions of their style. One also needs to look up how they fared and whether they used the same tactics against different kinds of opponents (infighters, outfighters, etc). Boxing skills may have changed, but if a fighter had no trouble with swarmers in his time, it's unlikely he'd have troubles with them a hundred years later.
i don't have a set opinion but it makes me think that for many fighters i watch the limited footage and fill in the often massive blanks with written stuff and opponent footage. would you rate burley differently without the film? it helps but i'm not sure it makes much difference in those cases, and you're just talking about taking the final step. writing that makes me think stronger/firmer opinions on a fighter based on film should have a cutoff point of like 5 fights examples where descriptions don't match the film are relatively rare but they do exist. edit: i would think of burley differently without having seen one fight, but that's not quite the same thing
Ranking fighters H2H is stupid cause what you're doing is basically just guessing. You can make an educated guess on you think would win but you just never know what really would have happened, you can only go by what really happened. Imagine Douglas and Tyson never fought each other who would pick douglas over Tyson H2H on a mythical match up?Nobody. Who would pick the crude Iran Barkley to beat Thomas Hearns twice? Nobody. Ranking H2H might be fun but is a very flawed system IMO but to each his own. Have fun doing the way you like it better.
What does flawed even mean though? Why should a resume be more "important" than who I think wins? And who's to say beating fighter A, B and C is better than X, Y and Z. It's more than just guessing it's interpreting what is, by nature, a subjective sport.
You trying to guess who wins is subjective resume is not. Its as simple as that. But like i said do it the way you want but dont try and make it sound like its some kind of unfailable science cause its not,, at the end of the day anyone can make a pick on who they think would win a H2H mythical match up but nobody would know for sure , you could pick either way and nobody could prove you're wrong cause at the end of the day we can only go by what really happened not what we think would happen. But have fun bro its not that serious anyway.
There is no unfailable science in boxing. Men can win against more skilled opponents, they can win against more proven opponents, they can win against opponents with a better resume. How we determine skill, accomplishment and resume will always be subjective. People argue better resumes just as much as they argue who would win fights. Who has a better resume Lewis or Louis? How do we even determine that? It's subjective opinion. Just the same as if I ask who wins between Lewis and Louis. This is a subjective sport. Embrace it.
