Of our best boxers, who beat the best quality of opposition, and looked the best doing so? No tenure. You have to earn your place every year. 2012 1.Donaire- Vazquez, Mathebula, Nishioka, Arce 2.Marquez- Fedchenko, Pacquiao 3.Gonzalez- Jimenez, Hirales, Monterrosa, Estrada 4.Ward- Chad Dawson 5.Mayweather- Miguel Cotto 6.Martinez- Macklin, Chavez Jr. 7.Pacquiao- Tim Bradley 8.Canelo- Mosley, Lopez 9.Froch- Bute, Mack 10.Rigondeaux- Ramos, Kennedy, Marroquin 11.Golovkin- Fuchigami, Proksa 12.Kovalev- Boone, Thompson 2013 1.Rigondeaux- Nonito Donaire, Joseph Agbeko 2.Mayweather- Robert Guerrero, Canelo Alvarez 3.Donaire- Vic Darchinyan 4.Golovkin- Rosado, Ishida, Macklin, Stevens 5.Froch- Kessler, Groves 6.Garcia- Salido, Lopez, Martinez 7.Kovalev- Campillo, White, Cleverly, Sillakh 8.Lara- Angulo, Trout 9.Klitschko- Pianetta, Povetkin 10.Canelo- Trout 11.Inoue- Sano, Taguchi, Mancio 12.Pacquiao- Brandon Rios 13.Ward- Edwin Rodriguez 14.Gonzalez- Barrera, Rodriguez, Blanquet 15.Lomachenko- Ramirez 2014 1.Lara- Canelo, Smith 2.Gonzalez- Kantun, Purisima, Yaegashi, Fuentes 3.Inoue- Hernandez, Kokietgym, Narvaez 4.Rigondeaux- Kokietgym, Amagasa 5.Golovkin- Adama, Geale, Rubio 6.Crawford -Burns, Gamboa, Beltran 7.Pacquiao- Tim Bradley, Algieri 8.Mayweather- Marcos Maidana x2 9.Lomachenko- Russell, Piriyapinyo 10.Kovalev- Agnew, Caparello, Hopkins 11.Froch- Groves 12.Canelo- Angulo 13.Klitschko- Leapai, Pulev 14.Donaire- Vetyeka 15.Garcia- Burgos 2015 1.Gonzalez- Leon, Sosa, Viloria 2.Golovkin- Murray, Monroe, Lemieux 3.Mayweather- Pacquiao, Berto 4.Canelo- Kirkland, Cotto 5.Kovalev- Pascal, Mohammedi 6.Lomachenko- Rodriguez, Koasicha 7.Crawford- Dulorme, Jean 8.Ward- Paul Smith 9.Rigondeaux- Francisco 10.Lara- Rodriguez, Zaveck 11.Inoue- Parrenas 2016 1.Kovalev- Pascal, Chilemba, Ward 2.Gonzalez- Arroyo, Cuadras 3.Lomachenko- Martinez, Walters 4.Golovkin- Wade, Brook 5.Ward- Barrera, Brand, 6.Usyk – Mchunu, Glowacki 7.Crawford- Lundy, Postol 8.Charlo- Williams, Trout 9.Canelo- Khan, Smith 10.Pacquiao- Tim Bradley, Jesse Vargas 11.Inoue- Carmona, Kokietgym, Kono 12.Thurman- Porter 13.Lara- Martirosyan 14.Rigondeaux- Dickens 15.Garcia- Elio Rojas 2017 1.Golovkin- Jacobs, Canelo 2.Rungvisai- Gonzalez 3.Gonzalez- Rungvisai 4.Joshua - Klitschko, Takam 5.Garcia- Broner, Zlaticanan 6.Crawford – Molina, Diaz, Indongo 7.Lomachenko- Sosa, Marriaga 8.Santa Cruz- Frampton, Avalos 9.Usyk – Huck, Hunter 10.Spence- Kell Brook 11.Estrada- Cuadras, Salas 12.Thurman- Garcia 13.Inoue- Rodriguez, Nieves, Boyeaux 14.Kovalev- Shabransky 15.Canelo- Chavez Jr 17.Lara- Foreman, Gausha
2012: Donaire 2013: Rigo 2014: Crawford (although Froch knocked Groves out in front of 80000 people at Wembley) 2015: Mayweather 2016: Crawford 2017: Crawford
Appreciate the effort but you can't say based on resume Pacquiao was the 9th best fighter in 2017. Also, Canelo beating Khan at 155, followed by Liam Smith!
"No tenure. You have to earn your place every year." So it's ranking who had the best calendar year, each year independent of the rest? If so, how can you rank Rigo and Golovkin over Crawford and Pacquiao for 2014? Or is it only independent of what happened prior to 2012? How could Mayweather not be #1 for 2015? I don't get it. The list seems ridiculously inconsistent (and/or straight up crazy).
Crawford and Pacquiao had better opponents but Rigo and Golovkin had better performances. It's a mix of opponent quality and how well you do against them. Mayweather's opponents looked like **** in 2015 and he didn't look great against them either. That's why he's not #1 that year. I think the last time he legitimately deserved to be ranked #1 was in 2007. The Pacquiao and Berto that showed up to fight Mayweather weren't on the level of the Viloria and the Sosa that showed up to fight Gonzalez, and Gonzalez gave better performances against his opponents that year than Mayweather did. I don't know how anybody could give Mayweather #1 p4p by 2015 and keep a straight face. I didn't give it to Marquez who flatlined a much better version of Pacquiao in 2012.
Looks like it could be interesting but I don't really get the point. You want to combine level of opposition with impressiveness, ok. But how do you distinguish the impressiveness of so many performances in each year? Determining how impressive the wins you mentioned were requires a lot of analyses and comparison which you don't provide. Without that the order looks random, with Thurman beating Garcia only rating about as highly as Canelo beating Chavez Jr. I don't think combining level of opposition with impressiveness is an objective way to get at "p4p" anyway. P4P as I've said before here is about "ability" right now, who beats who if they were the same weight. Level of opposition and impressiveness matters, but p4p can't be reduced to that. There are always unquantifiable, "subjective" factors we try to take into account, the skillset the guy's shown more than anything, which doesn't need to be shown in the last fight or two but can be gathered over several performances, whether he's still the same as he was in the past, how good the opponent actually was at the time. It can't and shouldn't be objectively quantified. On the other hand, something close to what you're doing would makes sense as a way of measuring who should be called Fighter of the Year. That's more objective, it's about accomplishments, competition mattering most, then quantity, then dominance. Don't try to weight "impressiveness" as much as you're trying to do and this is a really good Fighter of the Year model. As Nonito said, this looks like ranking in a calendar year, which is pretty much what Fighter of the Year is.
Canelo stomped the **** out of Chavez Jr who was C or D class at that point. It's a great performance against a weak opponent. According to compubox Canelo tripled Chavez Jr's connects. Thurman looked alright getting a squeaker over a B+ level opponent in Danny Garcia. I'd say those were roughly equivalent feats. Objectively quantified, you mean like with a p4p list? Part of my thinking is that no way was Mayweather the same fighter post 2012 that he was pre-2012 and it's always rankled me that so many people left him at #1 without him even having to prove anything most of those years. Because of that criminal oversight we have guys who should have been rated #1 (Ward, Donaire, Rigondeaux, Gonzalez) not getting their due. I think looking at a fighter's entire resume has the tendency to reward fighters for past acts and lets them coast. They cherry pick, take vacations, fight once a year against a nobody and still get to keep their title? That's bull****. I wouldn't stand for it for a division champ ducking his mandatory. It should go double for a p4p rating. I think it's fair to say that the guys I mentioned above were doing better work in this five year period, and so was GGG. These were p4pers in their prime doing better work than a p4p who is clearly past prime. Then you have guys like Inoue who comes out of the starting gate throwing fire, to sit on his hands for three years before he fights another tough opponent. You might as well keep Ward or Garcia in the rankings during their semi-retirements. That kind of **** can't be rewarded. The p4p guys need to be in competition with each other all of the time. They shouldn't be allowed to be inactive or to fight substandard opposition.
No Mayweather losing a couple rounds against Cotto and Marquez knocking out Pacquiao isn't proof that Mayweather was suddenly diminished or invalidate his shutout of Marquez and suggest he wouldn't beat him any less decisively if they fought again. A standard of merely looking impressive against top opposition recently is ridiculous if it means Marquez could at any time be rated above Mayweather. And while Mayweather may have declined somewhat late in his career, he moved up to masterfully best the bigger Canelo, so it's not like you can say the results weren't there. I did keep Ward high when he was inactive and I put Mikey Garcia straight back in my p4p after his comeback fight against the no-hoper Rojas, based on potential. And the proof that I was right to do so is in the subsequent pudding of Ward's performances against Kovalev, and Mikey's against Zlaticanin, etc. Sometimes inactivity or not facing top opposition blunts a boxer's reflexes and ability, but that's a judgement we have to make and can't assume, it should be just part of the analytical hodgepodge that makes "eye test" p4p comparison what it is. When we're talking p4p we need to talk speed, power, chin, defence, punch selection, ring iq, the fighter's current level based on performance vis a vis the evident stylistic challenge of his recent opponents, more than simple recent level of opposition and results.
So a p4p list is just about potential rather than actual achievement? Who could achieve the most if they actually wanted to?
Yes Achievements can be evidence of further potential, but not always, that's where style advantages have to be appreciated. And why in addition to dominance as an "achievement", I rate beating a variety of styles more highly than simply beating more proven names than other top guys. Mayweather for sure dominated a wider variety of styles than Pac, Marquez, Golovkin, and also Rigo did. As well beating bigger guys by definition means a lot p4p, but for me it's not most important.
