New Head to Head Comparison (TOURNAMENT INSIDE)

Head-to-Head Analytical "Shortcuts" and How To Avoid Them

Here in Classic, we occasionally get too wrapped up in our own orthodoxy.

Ali and Louis beat everybody head-to-head because they're higher on the list. Lennox got starched by B-level fighters. Carnera won because the mafia backed him. And so it goes...

Too often in head-to-head matchups, we reach for the guys who we THINK are the "best fighters" on each guy's resume. For instance, when discussing Joe Louis's best victories, we mention Galento because he floored Louis, Schmeling because he beat Louis, and Baer because he held the title before Louis did. Even Uzcudun gets mentioned because he gave Louis trouble.

For Fun, Try This Instead:

THE RULES

1) Assume that all eras are equal.

2) Use Ring Magazine rankings to determine a fighter's quality within his own era. All equally ranked contenders are equal. Baer and Foreman were both #1 ranked crude sluggers before they faced their respective champions. Treat them that way.

3) Consequently, champions are (mostly) equal. Louis and Liston were both similar, stalking boxer-punchers, for instance.

4) Look more closely at styles and performance against similar opponents to determine the winner of a fight.



For the Dempsey vs. Ali example above, for instance, you'd assume for the sake of argument that Tunney was roughly as good a boxer-mover as Ali was. This forces you to look more closely at the film of Ali-Frazier and Dempsey-Tunney to look for stylistic arguments one way or the other. "Quality" doesn't cut it. If your stylistic analysis tells you that Leon Spinks beats Jersey Joe Walcott, well, SO BE IT! It's not that crazy. Both were champions, after all.


Possible Objections

a) "But eras aren't equal!" -- True, but you usually can't judge an era's strength by watching its top fighters on film. Fighters only look as good or bad as their opposition. Until we get definitive information about the total talent pool competing in each era, it doesn't make sense to say that guys in the 1960's were better than guys in the 1990's or 1920's. For that matter, if boxing gym statistics accurately represent the talent pool, then Dempsey might have competed in a harder era than Ali.

b) "This method goes too far. Carnera gets the same credit as Frazier? Baer's as good as Foreman?! Hasim-effing-Rahman equals Johanssen? MADNESS!" -- Good point. But I invented this method partly to redress the balance and shake things up. Each heavyweight champion can claim that at a particular moment in time, he was the best fighter on the planet. That's pretty thin company. Contrary to the common perception that fighter X "DESTROYS" fighter Y in a fantasy matchup, the talent difference between the absolute elite is probably razor thin. Also remember that the title usually changes hands when a champion gets old, not because a champion gets "outclassed" in his prime. Remember that the Fight of the Century was a RARITY. Two ATG heavyweights met in their prime, and the unexpected guy won.



Your Picks:

Using this methodology, try the following heavyweight tournament. I've kept it in the 1920's-1980's range to eliminate superheavyweights and dinosaurs:


BRACKET 1:

Rocky Marciano vs. Max Baer

BRACKET 2:

George Foreman vs. Ezzard Charles

BRACKET 3:

Jack Dempsey vs. Larry Holmes

BRACKET 4:

Jersey Joe Walcott vs. Jack Sharkey

BRACKET 5:

Sonny Liston vs. Max Schmeling

BRACKET 6:

Joe Frazier vs. Primo Carnera

BRACKET 7:

Joe Louis vs. Ingemar Johanssen

BRACKET 8:

Floyd Patterson vs. Gene Tunney

And give me film analysis! That's what they built Youtube for. (Well, that and compendiums of cute cat pictures.)

 

Straight down the line.

In your case, Marciano/Foreman, Holmes/Walcott, Liston/Frazier, Louis/Patterson.

 

For starters...

Louis vs. Johansson

I'll start by assuming SOME level of parity between these two, just for the sake of argument. That brings us to styles.

Johansson pawed with the jab and moved to his left as he did so. He often dropped the left, and sometimes turned it into a sloppy, halfhearted hook. This, too, tended to drop after he threw it.

Against Patterson, this worked surprisingly well because Patterson had short arms, bobbed and weaved rather than blocked punches, and relied upon the left hook. Consequently, he couldn't make Johansson pay for his pawing. When he slipped a punch, Floyd needed to lunge in with his left--the same punch that Johansson was moving away from. Floyd's bobbing and weaving, by contrast, moved him into Johansson's range. In the first knockdown, Johansson's threat of a lazy left hook herded Floyd to the right, where Johansson nailed him.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wn0YclbKR0[/ame]

(Notice that Patterson still managed to fight back against Ingo, who needed seven knockdowns to close the show.)

Ingo's leftward crawl wasn't confined to the Patterson fight as a way to avoid the left hook. He moved to the right against Machen as well, which suggests that he preferred to go in that direction when jabbing.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezLbrjlyTuQ&NR=1[/ame]


Like Ingo, Louis dropped his left and occasionally pawed with it. Close to Louis's prime, Braddock and Schmeling both took advantage of this. But Schmeling still couldn't capitalize until the fourth round. Louis's left carved him up pretty well before he finally landed his knockdown rights.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lihT_ewxVko[/ame]

Louis's defense, unlike Patterson, relied upon parrying the jab. Against fighters who pawed with the jab, Louis generally didn't slip and bob. Instead, he parried and zapped the guy with a right over the top. You can see this in a couple of these knockouts, but particularly in the Louis vs. Carnera clip.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sv1ph-Ecf0&feature=related[/ame]

The Braddock fight shows another wrinkle. When Louis moved in on Braddock and started bobbing and weaving, Braddock nailed him in a way rather reminiscent of Ingo vs. Patterson.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvhscZl7He4&feature=related[/ame]



So...

On styles alone, I think that Louis beats Ingo. Both men dropped their jabs, which gives each an opportunity. Here's the difference: Louis has the height and range advantage against Johansson. Floyd didn't.

Louis would block Johansson's pawing jab rather than ducking it, and fire his own from longer range. Schmeling had trouble timing Louis's jab even though Schmeling was a canny counterpuncher. So was Ingo, but even so, I don't think Johansson figures Louis out fast enough. At some point, Louis would shoot his right hand over Ingo's pawing jab, and Ingo would find himself moving into Louis's punch.

If Louis tried to jump on Johansson early, though, he might get nailed when he's doing a Tyson impression a la the Braddock fight. Even then, Louis might weather the storm. Floyd almost did, and Louis showed great recuperative powers against both Braddock and Schmeling. His counter-barrage against Schmeling might have backed Ingo off, and he also wouldn't need to lunge in against Ingo, since he had the range advantage. I'd give Ingo better-than-middling chances of beating Louis if he hurt him first, but I don't think that he would. Even if he did, Louis might recover. The same could not be said of Ingo.

Overall, then:

Louis by KO.

 

I meant Louis's (& Patterson's) right, Johansson's left. Drat. I'll fix it.