I should have mentioned that indeed, I was talking about fights going the distance. For fights that ended in KO's the number of punches thrown per round would be better. Obviously it's not about first round KO's.
If I remember correctly, Valuev threw next to nothing during the first half of the fight. Holyfield threw (and landed) more, but still had a very 'economic' punch output. I think Valuev-Holyfield is the winner here.
He wasn't much better in the second half, Holyfield still landed more apart from the last 2 rounds. I think that fight should have been summed up as Holyfield fighting quite well for his age and Valuev putting on the worst performance for a champion that I have seen for some time.
Hilarious isn't it I'll be fair here and acknowledge that Johnson threw his punches with less intent than Haye, but throwing double the amount of punches compensates for that.
The traditional approach in boxing is to score the punches that land, not the punches that are thrown. Johnson landed 60% less punches than Haye did, and the ones he did land were less effective. Explain again why the fact that he frequently flailed away at thin air 'compenstates' for that?
You are correct. I was talking about the effort put in by the fighter, not how it scored. Haye did indeed land more. They're not equal in scoring, but both efforts are pathetic in my book. A fast guy like Haye can throw at least 4 punches a second, that means if he threw one combination he would be inactive for a full minute after that on average (1 punch per 15 seconds). It's pathetic, and so far the only fight that was (admittedly) worse was Valuev vs. Holyfield.
But the basic point remains the same. Why do you care about how many punches are thrown? Do you thrill to the sound of fist against nothing? Does the waft of a wild non-connecting swing excite you? If Haye had waved his arms another 300 times in Valuev's direction without connecting anymore than he did why exactly would that have been better?