The trouble is you pour over a resume for ages and formulate your opinions but they are subjective. How can you quantify your findings or share them with others? You need a metric. I guess you could attribute a value to each fighter, and establish an algorithmic-formula that would increase or decrease those values depending on real world results. That sounds like a massive undertaking and I think the idea might have already been implemented
It occurs to me that one indication of credibility (among several) is a willingness to fight someone who is unbeaten. You don’t know how good an unbeaten fighter is because he hasn’t yet found his level so it’s a ballsy move and ambitious too, unless you make your living as an opponent for prospects. There’s not the same value in claiming you’ve fought 20 unbeaten fighters if you lost every encounter. With that in mind I think you should only count wins over a previously unbeaten opponent (PUO). Clearly it is far more impressive to beat someone who is 30 and 0 compared to 3 and 0 so maybe give the fighter one point for every win by each PUO? Too simplistic - we know it’s easy for a half-decent fighter to amass a long unbeaten record if he fights poor opposition, so let’s make it the fighter gets one point for every fighter beaten by his PUOs against opponents who have a winning record (i.e. they have won more fights than they have lost) With me so far?
So I thought it might be interesting to apply this to the five guys who can claim with some justification to be at some point THE MAN in the heavyweight division this millennium:
Boxer …... previously unbeaten opponents …... wins by PUO over winning fighters
Vitali Klitschko – total 85 points:
Alben Belinski 3, Ed Clover 15, Timo Hoffman 7, Chris Arreola 17, Kevin Johnson 14, Odlandier Solis 17, Manuel Charr 12
Wladimir Klitschko – total points 157:
Najee Shaheed 0, Zoran Vujicic 2, Eliseo Castillo 7, Samuel Peter 18, Calvin Brock 10, Sultan Ibragimov 16, Ruslan Chagaev 18, Mariusz Wach 14, Francesco Pianeta 19, Alexandr Povetkin 24,
Kubrat Pulev 17, Bryant Jennings 12
Deontay Wilder – total points 44:
Shannon Gray 0, Jerry Vaughn 0, Shannon Caudle 0, Damon McCreary 7, Kelvin Price 6, Gerald Washington 12, Luis Ortiz 19
Tyson Fury – total points 94:
Rich power 4, Marcelo Nascimento 4, Dereck Chisora 10, Neven Pajkic 13, Tom Schwarz 16, Otto Wallin 14, Deontay Wilder 33
Anthony Joshua – total points 71:
Emmanuel Leo 1, Gary Cornish 7, Dillian Whyte 9, Charles Martin 18, Dominic Breazeale 15, Joseph Parker 21
So in conclusion … Wlad 157, Fury 94, Vitali 85, Joshua 71, Wilder 44 or adjusted to take account of number of fights we have Fury 94/31 = 3.03, Joshua 71/24 = 2.96, Wlad 157/69 = 2.28, Vitali 85/47 = 1.81, Wilder 44/44 = 1.00
I confess I thought Joshua was going to walk this, at least basis average per fight. Fury edges it though mainly thanks to Deontay.
