How much footage of a boxer would you need to feel comfortable ranking them h2h?

Thistle, I do agree with you that through articles and reports you can get a good mental picture on a fighter's style and such. However, I disagree with fight reports being an accurate yardstick on what occurred in a fight. The reason is because of home town media reports being extremely biased. A couple of examples were reports on the Angel Espada-Clyde Gray fight and the Hiroshi Kobayashi-Antonio Amaya fight. In both instances I believed what was written on the dominant performances by Espada and Kobayashi, until I actually watched the respective fights and felt Gray and Amaya were the clear winners. The Puerto Rican and Japanese reports that were printed in Ring were one-sided for their man. Also, if one ever read the Mexican report in ring mag on the first Jose Napoles-Armando Muniz fight, you'd be amazed to find out what was not said in the report. Another one i recently watched for the first time was the first Koichi Wajima-Oscar Albarado fight. i grew up with the story that I read about Albarado trailing on points pulling it out at the end. The 3 Japanese officials did have Wajima ahead, but I had Oscar ahead after 14 rounds. And sitting in disbelief wondering when Wajima was going to turn it on to take the lead and wondering what fight the Japanese writer for Ring was watching. So my take on this is, sometimes one does have to see a fight to properly gauge what happened in an unbiased manner.

 

I'd need more footage than NONE, let's put it that way.

I can't count the number of times I've heard over the last 50 years how great a fighter is and then seen him and laughed.

 

Yes Scar, but that is why I stated;

NO it doesn't, it comes down to RECORDED REPORTS and Cross Record Checking... the amount of tangible & accurate information is staggering for most TOP Fighters... "and as you do with any research you gather, compare and conclude, often just as good an assessment as any footage."

Which I stated before 'IF' some opponents of said fighters are filmed then that only adds to to the assessing of the fighters where no film is available.

it is both obvious & simple, the Recorded History lays it out CLEAR, if you've got enough of it, and for TOP Fighters there is more than enough!

@ Dubblechin, I did mention in the follow up Post - "Mores the Pity"... I would Love to See Footage of ALL Great, TOP and Noted Fighters, but it isn't necessary for the many we can't see, by employing the Comparative Reports & Documentation as well as seeing Opponents who have been filmed and Opponents, Opponents too, to collectively make 'accurate' assessments. But, Yes it would be nice to actually see many of them.

 

we just have to Gather, Compare and Sift out Reports for an Accepted Consensus... which Collectively over as many Reports as possible is usually accurate as to how Fights went down.