BoxRec

One world ranked might have an opinion on as someone who appears quite strict when rating boxers over time vs resumé

What is more important/respected?

Consistently beating ranked fighters

Or

Having a single win over a p4p/top level fighter, but the rest of the resumé is weak

I'm referring to wins only not defeats fyi

Example 1

Calzaghe vs Froch

Froch is generally considered to have the better named opponents on his record, Calzaghe is alleged to have a weaker list of opponents.

Froch has, groves x 2, Kessler, Johnson, Taylor, Bute, Abraham, pascal. All good opponents.

But Calzaghe has a win over an unbeaten Kessler, and also a win over Hopkins. Who, whilst was old, has 2 near career best level performances near each side of the Calzaghe defeat (tarver and Pavlik). I don't believe Froch to have a better individual win over either.

Example 2

Khan vs Brook

As per the above. Khan has the consistency. Collazo, maidiana, Alexander, maliginaggi, kotenlik etc

Brook has very little, but he does have a win over Porter. The weakness in this example is maidiana, as it's not clear if Porter is definitely better after maidiana performance in floyd 1. My instinct is to edge porter over all khans opponents though.

So same principle, 1 has many good, the other has 1/2 very good.

Thoughts?

Note - this isn't trying to prove whose better out of any of them 4. Just seeing how you prioritise records

I tend to prefer the Brook / Calzaghe mold of the really big win rather than the Khan / Froch resume of consistently decent; assuming that none of the fighters in question had any defeats. But it depends how far the one big win stands out above the others and how fluke-ish it may be. For example, I don't necessarily think that a one-punch KO in round 1 against Roy Jones Jr. proves that you have a complete skill set and match-up well with all styles. If you totally outskilled a very skillful fighter for the full distance while also easily weathering bombs and demonstrating serious power, stamina, and ability to make adjustments; then I've seen everything I need to see. If your best win is just like 35% better than 4 of your other solid wins, then I'm willing to believe that it wasn't a fluke. If your best win is 350% better than your other best wins, then I'm going to need to reserve judgment until you can prove that it wasn't a fluke, or an extraordinarily favorable styles match-up, or you beat a guy on a very off night when he was concealing a serious injury. There's been a lot of respectable, but non-elite titlists who could grind out a respectably decent, consistent resume; like Marco Huck, Arthur Abraham, Lucian Bute, Zsolt Erdei, Juan Diaz, Nikolay Valuev, Sven Ottke, Pongsaklek Wonjongkam, Tomasz Adamek, and Felix Sturm. But 90% of the time, they are worse than the guy with one elite win and a few other wins over contenders; like Rigondeaux, Usyk, Fury, 2014 Kovalev, 2013 Stevenson, 2011 Ward, 2014 Crawford, 2010 Sergio Martinez.

Btw, Calzaghe is not a particularly good example of a Calzaghe type of resume, unless you truncate everything he did before he unified the belts, because he had 22 world title victories and various wins against Robin Reid, Chris Eubank, Jeff Lacy, etc..

A few of Erdei's wins were because of biased judges. Erdei was a fake world champion as far as I'm concerned and I'm glad he's retired.

Comparing Calzaghe to Froch, I believe that Calzaghe has a better resume than Froch. In Calzaghe's last three fights, he defeated Roy Jones Jr, Hopkins, and Kessler. Calzaghe also defeated Jeff Lacy. During his first few fights as champion, he defeated Robin Reid and Chris Eubank.

Froch lost to Kessler before winning the rematch. Froch lost to Andre Ward. Froch beat Glen Johnson who was way past his prime at the time. Froch defeated Jermain Taylor, Jean Pascal, and Robin Reid.

BoxRec has Calzaghe No. 1 all time in super middleweight division. Froch is No. 2, but a distant second according to points.

I too place value on having the better win.

I don't include Roy though like you, That fight was a joke. The Hopkins and Kessler wins are better than anything Froch has though imo. So whilst Froch has a number of good fights, the best wins belong to Calzaghe.

Any other examples of this? Or thoughts on Khan vs brook situation