Jack Dempsey v Bernard Hopkins

...how else would you propose we measure them?

I disagree. A sloppy jab is a sloppy jab whatever the competition. So is bad footwork, wide punching, slow hands etc. etc. etc.

 

You could prove, without argument, that one era had more fighters than another and that their average meal had more nutrition. This could have zero impact upon the p4p top 10 or, more certainly, a MW top 10.

Furthermore, proving inarguably which era definitively had more boxers recieving more training is far, far more difficult than noticing that one fighter leans with his jab and another fighter takes advantage of fighters that lean with their jab.

Finally, the fighter that leans with his jab can come from a deeper era and eat far better and he will still be a fighter that leans with his jab.

These are two entirely different things. I would say that analysts, for want of a better word, who can consistently pick winners are rare (though they do exist - google it, you'll find guys with 70, 80% prediction ratios right now) but analysts who cannot tell the difference between propsects and second-rater are rarer.

Yes, this is proven by the fact that technicians haven't and do not totally dominate the sport of boxing. It's a known fact and very, very few people hold prospects, greats, or second-raters up to an imagined perfection in boxnig technique as any kind of final solution.


Speaking personally, if I found out tomorrow that Dempsey and Gibbons and Tunney were from an era with 90% fewer boxers than fought in every other era, it wouldn't change my opinion on any one of them even 1%. This is because technical analysis is a proven method for picking winners. Categorising era's by depth does not because the reason for doing so is to more fully furnish the understanding of fantasy fights. It is a pure theory, one which will never be tested even if it could be properly constructed, which it likely cannot.

Also, watching boxing is more fun!

For most people

 

I don't say that it wouldn't just that it might not. Let's say a generation X casts up 3 once-in-a-lifetime fighters, a Leoanrd-Duran-Hagle type trinity. It is slightly smaller and less well fed than generation Y. Statistically you have - somehow - managed to prove that their relative sizes would generate a comaprable quality ratio of something like 6-4. Except the given statistical anomaly has changed that to 3-7. Your calculations tell you that Generation X should have the stronger era and so make the relevant picks, ignoring what your gut is telling you about these fighters in preference of your statistical evidence. Now you are wrong about the fighters involved.

I might be wrong too, but at least I would be wrong for the right reasons, if that makes sense.

As history, i'd hav no objection - in fact, i'd find it very very interesting. I love the idea, and I do think that talent pools are relevant. But let's say I favour Demspey over Marciano, then I find out that Marciano's pool is bigger by 15%. Would that change my pick? Of course not. I think there would be something almost immoral about abandoning your own judgement concerning something you have taught yourself about in favour of a statistically correct model which would not have definitive bearing anyway.

Surely then, this is when you start to view footage and watch boxing, not when you start asking questions about population levels and registered boxing licences?

what's sad about it?! Hahahaha you always interested me, from my very first day on the site, but why does it make you sad that the only way to understand boxnig is to watch boxing?! Do you feel sad about learning chess by studying chess, too?

What's the difference? You can see fighters face common opponents in their own era, but even this is brutally inaccurate. Do you expect Pacquiao to dominate Mayweather because Manny thrashed Oscar whilst Money struggled? No, of course not. You (probably) favour Mayweather heavily because his style and physical equipment on film suggest he will win.

Now, when I'm trying to decide if Mayweather will beat Barney Ross I want to know about their style and physical equipment on film, NOT the talent pool that created them.

A question. When I make a pick based upon this theory I look at what went wrong, what I missed, why the pick was bad. Then I try to adjust. Say you were able to make a pick based upon your theory of talent-pool-size and you were wrong? What adjustments would you make? Apart from trying to fudge the figures, what could you do?

As an aside, I don't think Foreman's astonishng achievment has any baring upon this argument. Just as another aside, did you know that Dundee rated comeback Foreman as a better fighter?

Yes, just as "smaller" eras will sometimes kick up better fighters by random chance.

But I'm sure you're not trying to suggest that all successful boxing picks are governed by chance rather than insight? Therefore I'm not understanding your point?

Why do we need to? This is surely proof positive that looking at and understanding fighters is a sure fire way to predict fights correctly most of the time for MOST people - as you say, the thousands/millions of gamblers who gamble on sport do very well.

This is all true, of course, it takes work, but far less than pooling all known information on boxing's participants for all of its history and then drawing what would most likely be (often) baseless conclusions from it.

The clash of styles/levels is importnat of course, and some fighters fool the eye for sure. But you are presuming some crazy level of ineptitude here. You have to have ALL boxing people not knowing what the **** they are looking at - a fighter, all his opponents and all their opponets - for your point to be valid. Your analysts don't just have to be bad they have to be completely wrong about all fighters in a given generation from an analysis point of view to make the kind of mistakes you are talking about correcting. I certainly have more faith in the sharpest boxing people I know, and actrually have more faith in myself, too.

To be clear, it's not just me, it's basically everyone. Nobdoy worries about how may boxers boxed when they ruminate Moore-Jones, and nor should they. They can make judgements about the two fighters on the expanses of film available and make a judgement that way.

And this is basically where we differ. If Dempsey was kind of 110 fighters, that wouldn't change his hook, jab, footwork, uppercut, durability or strength.

Durability isn't described by the number of possible rivals it is described by the punches the fighter can be seen taking ON FILM. His straight right isn't altered by any calculations concerning his talent pool it is observable ON FILM. His chances against Povetkin wouldn't be altered because boxing was rarer in his time in the face of the film available for study.

It would be very interesting, but it wouldn't have any impact on a Tunney-Charles pick - mine or anyone elses.

 

As a working model - not that I think it would work mind you - you could look either side of the world wars. I think this is when you would see a suddenly large pool make an appearence behind a relatively shallow one as a lot of the top fighters of generation X would be artificially aged before taking on generation Y.