Thoughts on How to Evaluate Resume in Current P4P Rankings

Most of us agree that in order to construct a quality P4P list we have to give significant weight to accomplishments, i.e., resume. This is rather innocuous on face. A P4P list is not a H2H one, and, thus, it must reflect factors other than perceived skill at the moment.

While looking over the thread about the controversy surrounding The Ring's inclusion of Celestino Caballero in their top ten over Paul Williams and Chad Dawson--I agree that this is inexcusable, by the way--I came across a post by Rock0052 expressing his opinion that Mosley is overrated at #4. In deliberating about the veracity of the claim, I began to wonder about how we are to evaluate a fighter with so much experience as Mosley. For instance, if we are to take the whole of his resume into account, he would have the accomplishments to be placed exactly where he is, if not higher. The same is true for Hopkins, who I would rank over J.M. Marquez if we are taking the whole of his career into account for accomplishments.

However, I imagine that many would not want to do this; rather, they would claim that the more appropriate method would be to somehow judge a fighter's more recent bouts, along with his more recent form for the talent portion of the equation. Otherwise, an ATG like Hopkins would ostensibly always be able to trump fighters who currently are on better streaks and appear to have more talent at the moment. Once again, this objection makes sense, but it raises the question: What is the cutoff point? I was hoping some of you would give your opinions on what we are to do on this matter.

Please don't respond if you're only going to debase the entire enterprise of P4P lists, or, if you must, please try and keep it relevant to this topic, e.g., our inability to come up with a fixed method for evaluating accomplishments is illustrative of the arbitrary nature of such lists.