Why are people so bad at picking the big fights?

[dondada]

Denial.

Hope.

Further, sometimes boxers are simply a lot better/worse than is generally held to be the case.

This was one, unfortunately, I called exactly right (which rarely happens).

[Tykemania]

This is not intended to be an "I told you so" topic.

A lot of people thought Carl Froch would beat Andre Ward. The "lot" will probably become a few with the revisionism that always occurs after the event but, believe me, it was a lot. As it happened, Ward outclassed Froch. Froch did not under-perform, he was simply nowhere near good enough. Why did people, who know the sport, not see this result coming a mile off? Even those who thought it was a 50/50 that Froch could well nick were a long way from being right. This is far from a unique occurrence. Why do you think people get it wrong so frequently?

Because predicting is very easy below world level when you usually know that one guy has been brought in to lose or at the very least has had the short side of the training time etc. Once you get to top class and have two guys who have had two months of prep time knowing who they are fighting etc, it gets a whole lot harder - there are definite variables in there even before you get to issues like refereeing, hometown decisions etc.

No revisionism here - I'm five from eight recently, having got Ward, Helenius, Cotto, Rios and Burns right but messed up backing Khan, Marquez and, to a lesser extent, Sturm.

[dondada]

This is not intended to be an "I told you so" topic.

A lot of people thought Carl Froch would beat Andre Ward. The "lot" will probably become a few with the revisionism that always occurs after the event but, believe me, it was a lot. As it happened, Ward outclassed Froch. Froch did not under-perform, he was simply nowhere near good enough. Why did people, who know the sport, not see this result coming a mile off? Even those who thought it was a 50/50 that Froch could well nick were a long way from being right. This is far from a unique occurrence. Why do you think people get it wrong so frequently?

Because predicting is very easy below world level when you usually know that one guy has been brought in to lose or at the very least has had the short side of the training time etc. Once you get to top class and have two guys who have had two months of prep time knowing who they are fighting etc, it gets a whole lot harder - there are definite variables in there even before you get to issues like refereeing, hometown decisions etc.

No revisionism here - I'm five from eight recently, having got Ward, Helenius, Cotto, Rios and Burns right but messed up backing Khan, Marquez and, to a lesser extent, Sturm.

So, you're claiming you got Helenius right? You have no shame, sir

Then again, maybe you just knew it would be a shocker of a decision.

[Tykemania]

So, you're claiming you got Helenius right? You have no shame, sir

Then again, maybe you just knew it would be a shocker of a decision.

I am, and I have the betting slip to prove it. The chances of Chisora getting a decision seemed pretty slim...

[Datsue]

Message subject:Re: Segura
From: Datsue
Sent: Sat Dec 17, 2011 2:56 pm
To: XXXXr
Message


Ward's going to fvck Frotchety the fvck up. That is all.

However, not everyone possesses my cool head & air of studied, inscrutable detachment (really, I pick fights like I was Jean-Paul Belmondo, motherfucker. Hat tipped at a rakish angle, prison rollie dangling at ease from my bottom lip, elfin teenaged girlfriend sighing just out of shot. Or maybe like I was Alain Delon. I get those two confused, sometimes. Anyway).

Boxing's a sport that produces passion, violent emotions, & large amounts of romantic longing. So people's judgement gets clouded, the heart overrules the head, & people tip Audley to beat Haye (cough). But we all do it. We're boxing fans, which means we're all a bit delusional anyway.

I quite like it, meself. It's nice to know that everyone else who watches this sport I love is as fooking mad as I am.

[Final round]

I thought Ward was the clear favourite all along?

[Deserter]

Macho, I think the title of the thread needs amending, as what you're really asking is "Why are people so bad at picking the big fights where they have an emotional attachment to one of the fighters?"... in which case the answer is in the title.
I rarely see the majority of the members of this forum making the wrong pick when its two US fighters facing off, for example, but by contrast, when a Brit is involved, there's a completely understandable tendency to want to be able to construct a scenario that sees the preferred fighter winning.
I was convinced that Ward would win a wide UD (as per my post yesterday), but that didn't stop me from playing out an alternative scenario in my head that saw Carl landing a fight-changing shot. It's human nature at the end of the day.

[Emmseegee]

They wouldn't be 'big' fights of people all agreed on a winner pre-fight.
Couldn't see the sky viewing figures being huge if everyone in Britain was like 'gonna stay up till 2am and see a fight, but I already know who's won' lol

[Finn]

One thing to remember is betting and predicting are 2 different things --
When you bet you look at risk to reward; a lot of the time the obvious outcome will earn you no money.

Example i thought ward would win, but put a small amount of money on froch, some put a few quid on roud 11 for Froch as that would earn you a couple of hundred quid.

I cant understand commentators though, i think sometimes they are paid to give different points of views to build the hype up a bit.

[Quixall]

I am roughly 50-50 in terms of predicting the big fights. The major problem is that they haven't fought before and it depends on what strategy they go into the fight with and how it pans out. You only have to look at something like the Leonard - Hearns triology to see how the outcomes of each fight were different, when in reality the result should have been the same each time because it involved the same fighters. Now obviously, their fights also took place in different weight divisions, ie, middleweight which suited Hearns more than leonard, but you get my jist ?? You can look at many other fights such as Morales - Pacquaio or Cotto - Margarito etc, where results have changed from one fight to the other. Sometimes fighters are just better than certain opponents, but sometimes it's down to the tactics used on the night. Another example, does anyone really believe that Hagler was way better than Hearns ? No he wasn't, but the tactics used by Hearns in that fight were meat and bread to Hagler and he made Hearns look ordinary and it was an embaressing knock-out. If Hearns hadn't had the problems he did in that fight he would have adopted similar tactics to that of Leonard when he faced Hagler and would have stood a very good chance of winning had he done so. One victory over a fighter isn't really concrete proof that they are the better fighter and would win everytime they fought a particular opponent.

[earsjohn]

For each of those claiming that they knew all along and every successful fight they've predicted offers proof that they are far superior to anyone with a different opinion, there are probably 10 very happy bookmakers sunning themselves on a beach somewhere.

With regards to this fight, Ward had the skills, but Froch had the toughness and the guts (Ward was supposedly unproven in this area) and Froch, being a bit of a throwback, will always appeal to boxing fans. I'm very guilty of picking by heart, rather than head, but then I'm not a gambling man so the worst I can suffer is someone I don't know on an internet forum mocking me for a wrong prediction. Ouch.

[Dan Dares]

One thing to remember is betting and predicting are 2 different things

Absolutely. I bet on Froch, and the wife predicted I would lose (correctly).

[Camcas]

People pick who they want to win not who should win

[JC]

Human nature I suppose, people need to convince themselves who they want to win is going to win otherwise the build up would be less fun.

It gets tedious when people want to make long tortured arguments for why their guy will win when it's obvious they would find a way of picking them to win if they were fighting the entire Spartan army.

In the case of last night (and Wlad/Haye) it was a good example of one guy having only a punchers chance. A LOT of boxing fans place way too much emphasis on the likelihood of a knockout in any given fight.

[Finn]

Human nature I suppose, people need to convince themselves who they want to win is going to win otherwise the build up would be less fun.

It gets tedious when people want to make long tortured arguments for why their guy will win when it's obvious they would find a way of picking them to win if they were fighting the entire Spartan army.

In the case of last night (and Wlad/Haye) it was a good example of one guy having only a punchers chance. A LOT of boxing fans place way too much emphasis on the likelihood of a knockout in any given fight.

I agree with most of your post but disagree with the wlad v haye example - Wlad won the rounds by a couple of jabs mainly due to haye not doing anything. People who are saying he schooled haye are way off the mark, it was a poor fight and if anything the 12th round showed that haye could have done more and got some success if he had been willing to put it on the line.

[JC]

I was probably being a bit loose with the term puncher's chance. I was thinking less about a skills gap, more a styles thing. I just don't see Haye beating Wlad on points, IMO it would have to be a KO. Haye had success in the last round but that is often the case when the other guy is protecting a big lead (like with Froch/Ward and conversely Froch/Abraham). If Haye had been more aggressive early with his style I think Wlad would have been able to punish him for it. IMOthe best way for a smaller guy to outpoint Wlad would be to fight a similar fight to what Chisora did vs Helenius but at a higher level.

[freddydoesdallas]

The head can sometimes be overruled by the heart. I've stopped betting on these kind of fights as it was costing me. Much easier when you can take a step back and judge without emotion.

[Khaosai-Galaxy]

This is not intended to be an "I told you so" topic.

A lot of people thought Carl Froch would beat Andre Ward. The "lot" will probably become a few with the revisionism that always occurs after the event but, believe me, it was a lot. As it happened, Ward outclassed Froch. Froch did not under-perform, he was simply nowhere near good enough. Why did people, who know the sport, not see this result coming a mile off? Even those who thought it was a 50/50 that Froch could well nick were a long way from being right. This is far from a unique occurrence. Why do you think people get it wrong so frequently?

Romance!

Boxing is a very romantic sport (not in that way, you sick perverts) Everyone loves the myths and legends of the sport and when a big fight comes along people tend to get Emotionally involved and reason goes out of the window.

Look at the build up to Tyson - Lewis for a great example, so many people picked Tyson it was just hilarious.

[mahatma]

i like it not being too predictable thats the great thing about the sport be you an ex-fighter,pundit/expert,journalist, armchair expert etc we all have strong opinions but at best get 60 per cent right, bit better than tossing a coin!