Why Aren't Boxing Experts Anymore Accurate At Predicting Than Us Fans.

But the historian in you knew that time would catch up with him any day now!

 

Because ofttimes the term "boxing expert" is a completely worthless moniker, with no clear criteria for conferral (though it tends to be older gentlemen who have hung around the scene for a good few years who tend to get labelled as such).

It's also an art and a skill in itself to predict fights, that seems to have very little real world crossover to coaching ability or historical knowledge. I've seen more accurate and in-depth predictions from posters on boards like these than I ever have from experts within the field, many of whose predictions tend to be either overly simplistic (probably due to the fact that they're being asked for a soundbite from a reporter TBF) or which rarely go against the grain of popular opinion.

Two particular examples that jump out at me are the Lacy Calzaghe fight and the Wlad Fury fight, both of which exposed to me just how little many individuals within the industry truly understand the intricacies of their profession. There have been others, but those remain the beacons.

 

Hahahaha.

 

What they do is get 2 sides to every fight. This is what draws pre-fight interest and hopefully sells more tickets or in recent times, better viewership.

But they never get lopsided points of view like 90% for 1 guy. They keep asking around until they get enough folks to balance it out. And if they are having a tough time with their ratio, they turn to celebrities and so forth to balance the scales.

 

I talked with the Sugarman at HOF too!

Got a funny video a friend took for me. A couple of Tecate ring girls took a picture with him. I hollered out "Sugarman, still the sugardaddy, huh?"

Bert said, well, I do use viagra, but not for the ladies, I do it at this age to keep from pissing on my shoes!"

Ok, I guess you'd have to had been there..just a funny dude. When I smelled that cigar, I knew he was around. And damn, he wore those funny azz plaid pants every year..with the white shoe with a buckle, instead of shoestrings.

RIP Bert Sugar...dude was a literal walking boxing encyclopedia.

As far as bad picks. Manny Steward RIP always picked both fighters.."you know fighter A is dangerous, but fighter B is so fast."
End of the fight...I knew he was gonna win!
No U didnt!

B hopkins is horrible. He picked Edison Miranda to become the next great MW....and a few other bad picks.

 

I think you have to clarify on who is making the predictions.

Boxing has four different types of personalities that weight in on fights.

1 ) The Media Broadcasters. Average at best.

2 ) The Trainers, the most biased. The worst of the bunch at predicting fights.

3 ) Historians. They are just okay, usually slow to notice up and comers.

4 ) The Matchmakers / Gamblers, by far and away the best at predicting the fights.

I don't think boxing is terribly hard to predict, especially in the lower weight divisions.

 

Sometimes a promoter will get an legendary former champion and hire him to help draw interest in a fight. You've seen it a thousand times, the legend picks the underdog. They brought Duran in to say that Mayorga was gonna knockout Trinidad.

 

Clarification is needed.
An Expert can also mean one who has precise knowledge of how to box, identifying certain aspects & demeanor that one can say: That kid is the one!

Example: Cus' D'Amato in that sense was an expert. He died never seeing how his last prediction (Michael Gerard Tyson) would do.
CUs in that sense proved he could identify an athlete's weakness and strength.
And in fact stated what would happen when Ali would fight Frazier...How is this video not proof that Cus' if there was one....is an expert in determining how a fighter can win and with what skillset

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The other type of expert is relative to this thread- predictions.
Question, are the experts in other sports better or worse at picking winners and losers?

 

Out of the thousands (millions?)of boxing matches held from the time of radio broadcast it's pretty easy to pick one fighter over another esp if one knows something about the fighter. Is fighter "A " an up and comer? Is Fighter "A" fighting a pad his record type of fighter? So yes a "Boxing Expert" could be successful in predicting an outcome in that situation. Only because unlike most he has media reach behind them and his predictions are distorted by his easy predictions. But when two fighters are evenly matched, and what cannot be measured like will and desire, than those "Boxing Experts"s come back to the general public and making wild ass guesses on random unknowns.

 

Because as Ray Arcel said, the human jaw was not made to b hit

 

Nah, like someone said above, boxing, training, and predicting are different skillsets that don't necessarily transfer. I've seen good coaches who were bad boxers, good boxers who were bad coaches, and representatives from each who couldn't predict the simplest matches.

 

sometimes Ferdie Pacheco made me laugh. I liked him, and talked to him on the phone a couple of times. Really nice guy. When Hearns fought Hill I don't know what he was saying. He said something like Hearns will not start off fast, he is a boxer. Well Hearns usually started off fast to give the crowd a fight. And Ferdie knew that. but I liked him. I like the original HBO team of Merchant,Tompkins and Leonard... I thought they were good.

 

It’s a 2 horse race and in many cases, one is clearly better or in better form than the other so how hard is it really to pick a winner?