How do you rate fighters you've never seen?

[margaret thatcher]

Or ones you've seen only very very little of

People make such grand claims of adulation on many historical figures who have at most fragments of footage available. How do you rate guys like this without seeing hardly any of what they actually offer? Just trust your view to whatever ppl at the time said? Just listen to what today's historical fundementalists/fetishists tell us?

You can also think in the similar way about guys around today whose name you may hear, whose record you can see, but who you haven't actually seen fight. How do you size up guys like this

[ewenhay]

How do rate boxers' basketball skills when you've never seen them bounce a ball, block tackle, or try to score points?

[margaret thatcher]

Bizarre response, but you love to make threads become about me don't you, you just can't get enough

You should ask the other dudes about that anyway, theyre the ones saying the boxers would be doing all those sports instead

This is a different issue in this thread of course, if you want to continue your obsession with me you can also start a different MT love thread or go down the PM route again

[Delta Jay]

Day 13 of quarantine and we’re all really chatting bollox

Seriously tho, I’ve always thought this. The game is so different these days and the old footage can be so scarce and poor quality that it makes it hard to assess the old timers.

[margaret thatcher]

How do rate boxers' basketball skills when you've never seen them bounce a ball, block tackle, or try to score points?

Btw, what block tackles would they be doing in basketball, do you even know what basketball is

[margaret thatcher]

Day 13 of quarantine and we’re all really chatting bollox

Seriously tho, I’ve always thought this. The game is so different these days and the old footage can be so scarce and poor quality that it makes it hard to assess the old timers.

Agree, the footage is scarce and when you do get footage it's often sliced up and just bits and parts of the fight. Personally, I find it very hard to feel confident about rating fighters without seeing much of them myself. I also think there might be a bit of a tendency to overrate some old timers and so don't just buy into what historians so right away.

[ewenhay]

How do rate boxers' basketball skills when you've never seen them bounce a ball, block tackle, or try to score points?

Btw, what block tackles would they be doing in basketball, do you even know what basketball is

Its early in the morning.

Anyway i'm from Scotland.

Basketball was a contact sport in school playgrounds here!

[ewenhay]

Anyway, I thought this was a fishing thread

[margaret thatcher]

Not fishing, so many of the vaunted historical greats have hardly anything out there on them, but people still celebrate them and pick them to win all sorts of hypothetical head to heads. Part of it is also a question of : how much, and what, can be deduced just from paper---although we have far more footage of modern fighters now, having BoxRec also makes it easy just to read off paper and not actually have a watch. How far does 'BoxRec-ing' go?

[Delta Jay]

Day 13 of quarantine and we’re all really chatting bollox

Seriously tho, I’ve always thought this. The game is so different these days and the old footage can be so scarce and poor quality that it makes it hard to assess the old timers.

Agree, the footage is scarce and when you do get footage it's often sliced up and just bits and parts of the fight. Personally, I find it very hard to feel confident about rating fighters without seeing much of them myself. I also think there might be a bit of a tendency to overrate some old timers and so don't just buy into what historians so right away.

Some of the historians can be a bit much at times, that’s all I’m saying. They seem to use much longer words than other types of sports fans.

[ewenhay]

Not fishing, so many of the vaunted historical greats have hardly anything out there on them, but people still celebrate them and pick them to win all sorts of hypothetical head to heads. Part of it is also a question of : how much, and what, can be deduced just from paper---although we have far more footage of modern fighters now, having BoxRec also makes it easy just to read off paper and not actually have a watch. How far does 'BoxRec-ing' go?

A lot of it is passed down from old timers who saw these guys in the flesh I guess

[ewenhay]

When people make all time lists there's really an invisible prefix which says 'based on what I have seen, read and heard..... "

There's no other real way to make a comparison if you want to include the late 19th and early 20th century guys.

It's all a bit of fun really though isn't it?

[margaret thatcher]

Ya, that's one way for sure. My issue there is that things often get distorted/altered with the more people they get passed through, and a lot of interpretation is specific to the context--like, someone talking about Jack Johnson was used to totally different sizes of HWs, totally different styles of fighting back then, etc. The man was called a 'giant' based on his size by observors in his day, yet he was 6 feet and often weighed no more than the 180s on fight day.

Admittedly, thats a really far back case though (as was Ketchel--another guy whose been in debates I've had)

[ewenhay]

Another method often used is comparing records of fighters in their own era with records of guys in other eras.

Based on the premise that you can only judge someone based on how they stacked up in their own era.

But again it's mainly subjective. As all the available measurables are in these types of scenarios.

There's no absolute objective criteria available to be used I don't think

[ewenhay]

Ya, that's one way for sure. My issue there is that things often get distorted/altered with the more people they get passed through, and a lot of interpretation is specific to the context--like, someone talking about Jack Johnson was used to totally different sizes of HWs, totally different styles of fighting back then, etc. The man was called a 'giant' based on his size by observors in his day, yet he was 6 feet and often weighed no more than the 180s on fight day.

Admittedly, thats a really far back case though (as was Ketchel--another guy whose been in debates I've had)

Heavyweights are the most difficult to rank for sure. Mainly due to there being no weight limit and humans getting bigger over time.

If Jack Johnson was born thirty years ago would he have grown bigger than he did at the time? Possibly.

Would he have developed a different style to be able to compete in the modern era? Probably.

Would he have had access to the same health, nutrition and exercise tools as the modern heavyweight? Definitely.

It's a complex formula!

[ewenhay]

It also depends how you quantify greatness. There are lots of different ways people measure this.

I think Jack Johnson's achievements were remarkable considering everything he was up against.
He was a new type of heavyweight for the times, size and style wise.


And he was so far superior to the competition, well at least the white competition, at the time.

All of those things come into consideration when people rank Johnson I think.

[ewenhay]

I think I killed the thread!

[Noxy]

Records for me like. Some of the oldtimers had so many fights, they couldn’t get enough of it.

[samwbr]

Jack Johnsons impact on society is still under appreciated I think.

[Counter-puncher]

I don’t (rate fighters I haven’t seen)

[KiwiRider]

I must be one of the most pedantic fight fans around.
It takes ages before I rate a fighter. They really have to have had some solid matchups before I rate them.
It almost embarrasses me to say that I still don't rate Tank, DDD, and didn't rate Zurdo at SMW
Yeah, I know

[Boxerbeetle]

I must be one of the most pedantic fight fans around.
It takes ages before I rate a fighter. They really have to have had some solid matchups before I rate them.
It almost embarrasses me to say that I still don't rate Tank, DDD, and didn't rate Zurdo at SMW
Yeah, I know

I still don’t particularly rate Fury, Wilder or Joshua

[KiwiRider]

I must be one of the most pedantic fight fans around.
It takes ages before I rate a fighter. They really have to have had some solid matchups before I rate them.
It almost embarrasses me to say that I still don't rate Tank, DDD, and didn't rate Zurdo at SMW
Yeah, I know

I still don’t particularly rate Fury, Wilder or Joshua

M'lord, I shall hand over the crown of boxrec's most pedantic poster, for I am not worthy

[margaret thatcher]

Jack Johnsons impact on society is still under appreciated I think.

May well be, he was a grand man indeed and had a legendary life, but I think his actual boxing career is hugely glorified. He won the HW title vs someone the size of Danny Garcia and has all sorts of other circus act stuff like that. I have watched what is available, though it's tough on the eyes as it's mostly Jack hugging his opponents

[samwbr]

Jack Johnsons impact on society is still under appreciated I think.

May well be, he was a grand man indeed and had a legendary life, but I think his actual boxing career is hugely glorified. He won the HW title vs someone the size of Danny Garcia and has all sorts of other circus act stuff like that. I have watched what is available, though it's tough on the eyes as it's mostly Jack hugging his opponents

I agree, as interesting as the history is and.I do read some of it I just can't judge or rate them really having never seen them fight.