BoxRec

Have been conflicted about this. This is something that I would hope that we should get people's comments on. Unfortunately No-Decisions were part of boxing years ago. This is important in how we evaluate a fighter's career. How much value should we give them and why?

Ambling Alp II wrote:Have been conflicted about this. This is something that I would hope that we should get people's comments on. Unfortunately No-Decisions were part of boxing years ago. This is important in how we evaluate a fighter's career. How much value should we give them and why?

From what I can tell researching the No Decision era is much more difficult than almost any other period of gloved boxing.

The suggestion that they be disregarded is ridiculous. If you can spend the time and effort to thoroughly research the many different newspapers that gave a decision on a bout then you could make sense of who won and lost in a lot of the ND fights. The fights were simply ND due to corruption. They were still professional boxing matches. The fighters still tried to win, in some cases they went harder for the KO in order to gain an outright win rather than a 'newspaper decision'. When two great fighters met in a ND, their reputations and earning/drawing power were still on the line.

The no decision fights were every bit as important and fought on their merit as decision fights. Anyone who researches the era for even a minimal amount of time can tell you. The fighters cut, bled, broke bones, and died. That doesn't happen in exhibitions. Championships often hinged on ND fights and title fights were awarded to fighters on the outcomes of ND fights. Bets were dependent on the outcomes written in the newspapers about those fights and those newspapers were often being written by the same experts that judged fights, refereed fights, and/or sat on commissions both before, during, and after the ND era. Its pretty silly to just throw out all newspaper decisions as opinion and discount them on a possible bias. One should attempt to gain a consensus of all first hand sources for a fight in the ND era its true and when diligent research like this is conducted its usually fairly simple to parse out who was better. This all got started because McGoorty aka Greg Leloony wants to discount all ND fights in favor of his beloved Australian MW championship and by extension Les Darcy's totally imaginary claim and in order to elevate Darcy's status above Greb (as a means of antagonizing me) he wants to throw out all of the results of those ND fights (which would still leave Greb with a resume that shits all over Darcy's). The problem with this is that when you comprehensively and exhaustively research the sources for Greb's ND fights you find that they are remarkably consistent and the overwhelming majority of those fights fight reports are unanimous. Greb rarely left room for doubt. The sheer monotony of his dominance can become almost boring at times when you read those accounts back to back. This is a major problem for someone like Greg Leloony who wants us to believe that ND reports were all over the place and muddy the boxing picture. They don't, especially if you know what to look at and how. Unfortunately Greg has never read anything on this era except his the four books he has on Darcy that he rattles on about ad naseum.

Tomasino wrote:

Ambling Alp II wrote:Have been conflicted about this. This is something that I would hope that we should get people's comments on. Unfortunately No-Decisions were part of boxing years ago. This is important in how we evaluate a fighter's career. How much value should we give them and why?

From what I can tell researching the No Decision era is much more difficult than almost any other period of gloved boxing.

The suggestion that they be disregarded is ridiculous. If you can spend the time and effort to thoroughly research the many different newspapers that gave a decision on a bout then you could make sense of who won and lost in a lot of the ND fights. The fights were simply ND due to corruption. They were still professional boxing matches. The fighters still tried to win, in some cases they went harder for the KO in order to gain an outright win rather than a 'newspaper decision'. When two great fighters met in a ND, their reputations and earning/drawing power were still on the line.

Exactly. Couldn't have said it better myself.

Not exhibitions, of course, but not quite as important as official decisions. Some fighters, Freddie Welsh being the first that comes to mind, didn't care about newspaper votes, but that doesn't mean he'd lose to the fighters who got the vote over him, if he knew an official decision was to be rendered.

Ridiculous.

Ambling Alp II wrote:Have been conflicted about this. This is something that I would hope that we should get people's comments on. Unfortunately No-Decisions were part of boxing years ago. This is important in how we evaluate a fighter's career. How much value should we give them and why?

Disregarding those results is a hardly an option, and outside of a better way of adjudicating on those bouts the results have to stand surely.

klompton wrote:The no decision fights were every bit as important and fought on their merit as decision fights. Anyone who researches the era for even a minimal amount of time can tell you. The fighters cut, bled, broke bones, and died. That doesn't happen in exhibitions. Championships often hinged on ND fights and title fights were awarded to fighters on the outcomes of ND fights. Bets were dependent on the outcomes written in the newspapers about those fights and those newspapers were often being written by the same experts that judged fights, refereed fights, and/or sat on commissions both before, during, and after the ND era. Its pretty silly to just throw out all newspaper decisions as opinion and discount them on a possible bias. One should attempt to gain a consensus of all first hand sources for a fight in the ND era its true and when diligent research like this is conducted its usually fairly simple to parse out who was better. This all got started because McGoorty aka Greg Leloony wants to discount all ND fights in favor of his beloved Australian MW championship and by extension Les Darcy's totally imaginary claim and in order to elevate Darcy's status above Greb (as a means of antagonizing me) he wants to throw out all of the results of those ND fights (which would still leave Greb with a resume that shits all over Darcy's). The problem with this is that when you comprehensively and exhaustively research the sources for Greb's ND fights you find that they are remarkably consistent and the overwhelming majority of those fights fight reports are unanimous. Greb rarely left room for doubt. The sheer monotony of his dominance can become almost boring at times when you read those accounts back to back. This is a major problem for someone like Greg Leloony who wants us to believe that ND reports were all over the place and muddy the boxing picture. They don't, especially if you know what to look at and how. Unfortunately Greg has never read anything on this era except his the four books he has on Darcy that he rattles on about ad naseum.

I agree with much of what people are saying who put a lot of stock in No-Decisions.
However, to play the devils advocate, here are a couple of concerns:
-As senya mentioned, some fighters mat not have been as motivated as their opponent. This might be how hard they tried in the fight, or maybe even more common how prepared they were coming into a fight where they knew there would no official verdict.

-My other other concern is I don't know that all newspaper decisions are equal. Some fights in small towns may have had one newspaper reporter covering the fight and who knows how biased or knowledgeable he was.
And if say 8 newspapers judge it for one guy and 7 for the other, is that really enough to be considered a "win" for one guy? If not, than how clearcut does it have to be?

Worse yet, we may have some of those fights on film, such as McFarland-Gibbons, where most who watch it can't see how it can't be anything but a win for Gibbons. And they have some reporters who attended the fight, such as famous Robert Edgren, agreeing with them. But then Damon Runyon, Ed. W. Smith and Bill Rocap were just as knowledgable, yet voted for McFarland. And Tom Andrews and the foremost New York City referee at the time (Billy Joh) didn't see either fighter having an advantage.

Of course newspaper men can not be unanimous. Same as judges. What bothers me more is some official draws way back when was agreed that would be official decision if no KO. I seen reports where opponent was beaten badly but was ruled a draw by referee because was pre fight agreement. So the newspaper account is good to have to get real picture of fight.