Is rating a fighter on the basis of social importance relevant?

no

ability, opposition and accomplishments matter more. Contributions to make the sport better don't count the same as how good a fighter really was

 

No.

I never really understood why people ranked fighters, or athletes, based on social impact or popularity.

Performance in the ring is what I judge fighters on.

 

Here's my take. Part of boxing is what the athlete meant to the era, and a group of people. This is how it has been, and suspect how it will continue to be in future.

As such, " Old timers " like Jack Johnson, Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, and Muhammad Ali tend to gain massive amounts of media coverage today, which in my opinion makes them all over rated in comparison to the champion who did not enjoy an equal amount of media coverage or worse yet were cast as villains by the media.

So in terms of " greatness " , yeah it means something’s, BUT in terms of head to head rankings, objective film analysis, or stastics it should not!

 

Exactly. They ruin the lists when they do that. In that case I will take Martin Luther King bowling 150 over Ali or Jordan. Whats the point.

 

I dont think it should, and dont really agree that most people do give that boost.

I would guess you are refering to Johnson, Ali and maybe Louis. All of whom can have legitimate arguements made purely on skill and accomplishments as to their high rankings.

John L Sullivan would be ranked much higher if social relevance were a factor.

I believe that it is more that there social relevance just makes more posters much more aware of their feats than actually influencing their rankings.

 

No.

 

Yes of course you do, everyone does. And if you say you do not, then all your doing is giving a bias to those who have less social importance, to make your point, even if you do not realise it.

We are all human we will always judge using criteria like that, we cannot help it.

 

It is an intersting subject but should not be consedered when ranking boxers.

 

I suppose it would depend on if you were rating them by social significance for their era, or for our era. Obviously Joe Louis is less significant today than he was in the '30s and '40s.

 

That is a tough one:huh

I do not think even I am that happy with this, but here goes:

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Yeah, you probably are right.

 

You're starting to need professional help.