Styles make fights. Linear logic in boxing doesnt always work

It hardly ever works, which makes the fights that more intriguing.

 

No, it "works" many times. It just doesn't happen as much as you think it would.

Fighter A beats B, and B beats C. Often A will beat C. But it's far from a high percentage because a style match up might make C competitive with A. Other variables too. But cherry picking one example is hardly even a half ass trial study. And yes I know something about this kind of analysis (stats/ probability, etc.).

 

As someone who works in that field I am both very curious what a serious analysis of boxing would show and glad it isn't done much because analytics have ruined other sports.

 

I'd be curious too. Have never seen/ read of a serious quant analysis of boxing matches although I'm sure they're out there.

Why do you think analytics have ruined other sports? Just about all of the team sports use them to some degree.

 

I think it works far more often than super fans want to admit

 

Never said that you did. But I've seen many of these types of topic threads over the years. People take one, maybe two, examples of fighter A wins over B, B wins over C, but C beat A ! Then implying like it "never works". Btw I was more replying to post #2.

What you call linear logic applies more than it doesn't. The examples where it doesn't stands out and people remember those fights. Btw2 I just googled "linear logic". Not your typical sports forum subject. Maybe (using > as wins over) A > B, B > C --> A > C is an example of linear logic, I'm not so sure. Of course if A, B, C are positive numbers it's always true, just "common sense".

Often wonder why some overuse LOL or LMAO? What was funny about what you suggested?
Do you have an example of non-linear logic in boxing? LMAO <--- fits here more than above

 

Probably the biggest thing is it's my job and I don't want to hear about when I'm trying to relax.

It takes a lot of subtlety and variety out of the game. They have brilliant analytics teams I'm sure but often the actual decision makers don't translate it well into practice.

In baseball, they figured out that power hitters who strike out a lot and pitchers with high velocity were systematically undervalued decades ago, so every team said "I'm doing analytics" and now if young Ricky Henderson walked in the door nobody would sign him. Eventually someone will figure out that contact hitters and knuckleballers are such an oddity they have an advantage, then the entire league will be contact hitters and knuckleballers.

This questionable approach to stats is really on display in the AWS ads that air all the time. There is no way that you can say the "catch probability" in a very specific situation is exactly 32%. You can even see problems in the measurements in the ad itself. Giving precise but not accurate statistics is a plague on the field.

I could rant a whole book on this. I want to see the human aspect, the players on the field and the leaders on the bench.

To include just a bit on topic, boxing is touch because the trajectory of each career is unique, change rapidly (particularly downward), and the sample size of fights is kind of small (since you can't really consider fights from 5+ years back since the fighters change so fast).

 

Preaching to the choir. I feel the same. It's like these fantasy sports leagues. I know people in & out of the quant/stat fields that have been in more than one at the time. I'VE NEVER BEEN IN ONE. Some of my other hobbies like strategy gaming have a game (obviously) theoretic & probability element to them, I don't need to play fantasy team owner/GM. Not knocking people that do, just not for me.

I also don't want to be politically lectured while I'm watching a sport. I started giving up most team sports decades ago so I'm ahead of the curve there

Good points, especially with respect to boxing. I used to be fairly heavy into MLB stats, but haven't for 20+ years.

 

I'm not tweaking at all.

You're very sensitive and don't read well. I was responding to the entire group. But your acting like a school girl b/c I countered your "linear logic" BS. I doubt you even know what it means. Give me an example of non-linear logic in boxing. I'll wait