BoxRec

Before the fight Saunders was rated as No.14 in the world by boxrec and Eubank No.55.. Saunders* lost Many points.. is it because it was a split decision?? If thats the case then the point system is very bad..

Eubank gained points..

Saunders sorry, I edited

That's how it works.. the gap between the two was large.. given that Saunders only won a split, the gap closed.

It does bring up an interesting argument.. in which they were both undefeated, so perhaps neither should've lost points in a case like this. Ah well.

No system is perfect. Eubank haven't had any decent opposition, so he was hugely underrated by boxrec. Split decision against a fighter with a low rating should cause rating drop even if the opponent was undefeated. There are quite a few undefeated fighters who suck.

Nothing wrong with how the formula handles split decisions. A split decision would imply that the fighters are pretty close, it's almost a draw. Wherever the two fighters were ranked before the fight, after a split decision they should come close to meeting-up in the middle, with the winner a little higher and the loser a little lower. The formula basically handles it perfectly.

If there is any issue here at all, it is that Eubank was underrated, and that was entirely the result of Eubank not beating better opposition prior to this fight.

Eubank was a bit flattered by the scorecards. He looked totally flat for the first half of the fight and got his ears boxed off in the majority of the rounds.

Lackeos wrote:Nothing wrong with how the formula handles split decisions. A split decision would imply that the fighters are pretty close, it's almost a draw. Wherever the two fighters were ranked before the fight, after a split decision they should come close to meeting-up in the middle, with the winner a little higher and the loser a little lower. The formula basically handles it perfectly.

If there is any issue here at all, it is that Eubank was underrated, and that was entirely the result of Eubank not beating better opposition prior to this fight.

A split decision should suggest that the bout is very close but it the real world of boxing judges it means absolutely nothing.

palooka wrote:

Lackeos wrote:Nothing wrong with how the formula handles split decisions. A split decision would imply that the fighters are pretty close, it's almost a draw. Wherever the two fighters were ranked before the fight, after a split decision they should come close to meeting-up in the middle, with the winner a little higher and the loser a little lower. The formula basically handles it perfectly.

If there is any issue here at all, it is that Eubank was underrated, and that was entirely the result of Eubank not beating better opposition prior to this fight.

A split decision should suggest that the bout is very close but it the real world of boxing judges it means absolutely nothing.

I agree, but the boxrec formula is based on the official scorecards, and that's just the way it is, whether for UD, SD, MD, Draw, or whatever. It would be perhaps slightly more accurate if we could overrule the official scorecards with some sort of unofficial community vote. But we would still have to deal with fans rendering biased scorecards. But whatever. It's not like we can program a robot to watch the fights and score them.

Lackeos wrote:Nothing wrong with how the formula handles split decisions. A split decision would imply that the fighters are pretty close, it's almost a draw. Wherever the two fighters were ranked before the fight, after a split decision they should come close to meeting-up in the middle, with the winner a little higher and the loser a little lower. The formula basically handles it perfectly.

If there is any issue here at all, it is that Eubank was underrated, and that was entirely the result of Eubank not beating better opposition prior to this fight.

Perfectly? What "perfect" system punishes a fighter by lowering his rank after a win over an undefeated opponent no matter how bad their opposition was?

Saunders was dropped points because one judge gave a dodgy score despite him still winning the fight, that's not perfect

GreenLightning wrote:

Lackeos wrote:Nothing wrong with how the formula handles split decisions. A split decision would imply that the fighters are pretty close, it's almost a draw. Wherever the two fighters were ranked before the fight, after a split decision they should come close to meeting-up in the middle, with the winner a little higher and the loser a little lower. The formula basically handles it perfectly.

Perfectly? What "perfect" system punishes a fighter by lowering his rank after a win over an undefeated opponent no matter how bad their opposition was?

Saunders was dropped points because one judge gave a dodgy score despite him still winning the fight, that's not perfect

If you are ranked in the top 10, and you fight a debutant with an 0-0 record, he could very well be the worst boxer in the entire planet, and yet he's technically undefeated. If you struggle mightily with him and barely eek out a split decision over the worst boxer on the planet, then you are total sh*t as well. Your ranking should therefore be lowered. Any system that does not lower a fighter's rank for barely defeating a significantly lower ranked fighter is a lousy system. If Fighter A performs a hair better than Fighter B in a fight, and is indeed truly a hair better in terms of actual abilities, then their rankings should then be moved to be within a hair of one another. If it were any other way, and a system ranked two fighters vastly differently despite them proving that they actually had very similar abilities, then that would be a bad system.

The fact that Chris Eubank Jr. was undefeated is irrelevant. Do you think that every undefeated fighter is great? Do you think that a fighter with losses is inherently worse than an undefeated fighter? Manny Pacquiao has losses, Lavelle Hadley is undefeated, which one do you think is better? Being undefeated proves nothing -- you begin your career undefeated. The worst fighters in the sport are often the debutants, and yet debutants are undefeated. Proof that a fighter is good only comes from notching meaningful victories, not from staying undefeated. Faruq Saleem started out his career 38-0, and he was only still undefeated because he was a bottomfeeder who fought bums; but in his 39th and final fight, he got stopped by a fighter with a 3-4 record. David Rodriguez started his career out 36-0, but it doesn't matter, because he was feeding on bums, and in his 37th and 38th fights he lost to 24-17-3 Darnell Wilson and oddly also 24-17-3 Raymond Ochieng. Being undefeated is not proof that you aren't bad, it's not proof that you are good, and it's not proof that you have potential.

GreenLightning wrote:If there is any issue here at all, it is that Eubank was underrated, and that was entirely the result of Eubank not beating better opposition prior to this fight.

This logic is ridiculous. So what if you thought one of the judge's scores was dodgy? How is the computer supposed to tell if 0, 1, 2, or 3 scorecards were dodgy in the opinion of GreenLightning? It can only go by the official scores as though all of the scorecards were tallied in good faith. Is boxrec supposed to program its formula to call you up and ask you which scorecards you thought were dodgy? How is it supposed to know that the one card for Eubank was dodgy, rather than the two cards for Saunders? There could be two dodgy judges. All it can go by is the official verdict.

No such thing as a perfect computerized system, and I certainly don't have a problem with the system deducting points from a guy when he wins a razor-thin decision against a much lower ranked opponent.

BoxRec ratings have some quirks and could be improved, but they still do a pretty darn good job. Bottom line is that any computerized system has to trust the official cards or everything starts to fall apart.

Saunders beat Eubank legit.
Billy stuck to a game plan I wouldn't have gone with mainly because I didn't think Eubank would buy it, but he did.
Chris gave up way too many early rounds and by the time his eye starting looking dodgy Saunders was looking at the finish line and preparing.
Have to respect Billy Joe Saunders all round, he boxed well, weathered some storms and stood his ground.
The fight itself was good and highly entertaining.