How does one rate punching power

How exactly is it rated? You have guys like say Alex Stewart or Frank Bruno who had high KO ratio's but aren't considered ATG punchers. Then other fighters who have similar KO ratio's like say Foreman and Shavers are considered ATG punchers. And for the most part, they all knocked out similar classes of opponents. It's not like Foreman and Shavers knocked out a who's who list of iron chinned top tier opponents.

And I'm just using those 4 as examples but that can apply to any fighters. So how is that judgement made?

 

Combination of speed, and impact of the punch...plus the ability of the fighter to disguise when or where the punch will arrive. (i.e. ..."the punch he never saw, is the worse").

The Rock's measured "Punching Power" was estimated at 1000 ft-lbs...which means 200 lbs lifted up 5 ft.
But probably today many super-heavies could generate a similar "one shot" value also.

 

Overall KO%

A focus on stopping top 15 ranked fighters

The ability to be suspicious of a high KO% built upon fighters with below average or average type of ring records.

The visual impact of the blows landed

An understanding that one can a great puncher but landing it takes skills.

 

These things are effective power. Including how cleanly & well one lands.
Raw power, how hard one can strike say a stationary target, is the correct measure of actual power.
But how well you throw a punch, set it up & land it, what else you have landed, how many, where it strikes, even endurance & chin can effect...Effectiveness.

So it is foolish to rate the power generated just by results.
Unless you are specifying effective, not absolute power.
Why a guy like Shavers may have revisionist history downgrade his power.
Because the best could survive him, but that means nothing in determing what actual force his best shots landed at.

 

But wouldn't skillfulness in delivery be different than raw power?

 

A high KO rate isn't necessarily indicative of huge power. Vitali Klitschko undoubtedly hit hard, but in general his KO's were the result of a relentless pounding of the other guy. The result of accumulated damage. Sam Peter clearly hit freakishly hard but his technique was fairly rudimentary which means that his initial stellar KO rate rapidly dropped off as he faced better competition. And finally, punch placement is also as important, if not more important, than raw power. We can see this with a practical exmple of how Povetkin, who hits plenty hard, but isn't as hard a hitter as Wilder, imho, managed to obliterate Duhaupas and how Wilder had to score a ref stoppage much later in the fight.

What I'm saying is: Colonel Sanders has it right. The eye test (how does the punch look? How is the technique of the puncher?) the results (OMG he dropped like a sack of spuds! Nobody ever did that to X before!) and the fighters final KO% as a reflection of how consistently he could bring his power to bear.

 

Yes. I was just saying it is possible to be a big puncher with bad accuracy.

 

This answer isn't satisfactory but,

you guess.

That, and seek out opponent testimony -but of course take it with a pinch of salt.

 

By its effect when it lands?

 

That's the thing.... watching some of Bruno's KOs and he looks as devastating a puncher as any ATG puncher yet he isn't considered one

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That Bruno video was very instructive.
Some of those punched were very long, or no fully leveraged, such as sweeping from the side to get around a guard.
Bruno hit so hard that he did not need the precision or perfection of others-until he got to the best fighters.

Bruno, Ruddock, Morrison, Butterbean, old Foreman, Tua...
They all hit harder than Mike Tyson for single shots.
Who himself hit extremely hard by ordinary mortal standards.

But none of them were as effective punchers overall in their primes.
Due to Mike's speed, boxing skills, precision, very fast combinations-he got more bang for his buck.

 

In many cases no real judgment is actually made.

 

Just an observation, but a lot of the time in debates like these terms are never accurately defined from the start, which results in confusion and a general muddying of the argument.

For a start, what exactly is meant by "raw power"? It's a term that gets thrown around a lot without any sort of real consensus on what people mean by it.

Secondly, how does one actually go about separating "raw power" from technique, speed, skill, aggression, punch placement etc? It seems impossible to me. The whole thing then becomes nothing more than a guessing game, with all the attendant subjective biases that people bring with them.

I honestly think the only way to gauge one punch power is by the eye test and a healthy degree of common sense.

 

Just an aside, but I generally pay little credence to what boxers have to say on other boxers's power, since I don't believe any human can reliably gauge how hard they're being hit. Can a really hard punch (a KO punch) even be registered on the senses?

 

Bruno's definitely considered a very hard puncher. He's generally ranked above Tyson, for instance, and I've seen him compared (without ridicule) to guys like Liston and Foreman. He currently suffers from being a more modern fighter in a sport that reveres its elders, which affects his standing in regard to older fighters, but I think the more time passes the more highly regarded he'll become.