?I?m by reflex a proponent,? Lampley admitted. ?It?s been, from the beginning, a foundational element for me in building the story of a fight??
Some count the days. Some count the years. Some count the decades. Some count the punches.
Thirty years ago today, CompuBox covered its first fight live on TV.
?February 16, 1985 was the first show, the Mancini-Bramble rematch,? Bob Canobbio, founder and president of CompuBox, told Boxing.com. ?It was on HBO. That was our first client.?
Before CompuBox, Canobbio was working at Sports Illustrated as a researcher. When someone called Sports Illustrated with a sports related question, they came through his desk. Fortuitously, HBO was in the same building, the Time-Life Building on 15th and Sixth, as Sports Illustrated and that?s where he met HBO Sports President Ross Greenburg. At Greenburg?s request, Canobbio started doing research on Boxing?s Best, a series of documentaries for HBO Sports.
All that changed in 1984.
?In ?84 we got word that a guy started something called Sports Information Database. With the advent of the personal computer, the idea was to assemble a team of editors from all sports to collect as much data as possible, attend these events with a portable computer?not a laptop?to access any kind of historical information that would be necessary. So I was hired as an editor at this new operation. I left Sports Illustrated to become an editor at this Sports Information Database. While I was there, I met my partner at the time, Logan Hobson, who left UPI to go to this database. While we were there a guy came in with this demo, a program for tennis. He went to the US Open, I think it was, and he created a box score for tennis using this portable computer he brought to the event, and that?s where we got the idea.
?Obviously we love boxing and thought maybe we can apply this to boxing. So we had a program written and we tested it out, I believe in Atlantic City. We did a card off television. And then we went to the Garden. They were still doing weekly or monthly shows back then. It was MSG Boxing, and we actually went to John Condon, who was the voice of the Garden at the time, and said, ?We have this program. Can we test it out on your live show? We?ll make graphics on it, at no charge,? and he said yeah and we taped it and brought it to Ross Greenburg at HBO. He looked at the tape and said, ?This is pretty cool. I like it.? So, within three months of its development, we were in business.?
It might have been kismet. It might have been happenstance. It might have been dumb luck. But Canobbio was prescient.
?Right place at the right time,? he said, ?and with the advent of the portable computer, we were just crazy enough to think at the time that we could pull it off. Right from the beginning, we had the program written so we could watch one fighter each, not trying to count both fighters with one operator. The first key was jab connect/jab miss. And then we had a non-jab for awhile, which we changed to power punch. I know some people have an issue with that. How can somebody land 300 power punches and not knock his opponent out? It?s just the term we use for non-jab. And then we added a body connect over the years. So basically it?s pretty much the same program that we started with. We wanted to keep it simple for the sake of accuracy. We?ve gotten requests to count hooks, right crosses, uppercuts. It sounds great, but it?s too many keys. We don?t want to sacrifice accuracy, so we kept the program relatively simple.?
Boxing is sublime, but it is resistant to change. Of all the major sports, boxing was, especially at the time, the weakest statistically.
?At the time there was nothing for boxing. There was tale of the tape. If you watch the old shows, that was it. During the fight there was nothing. There was just the clock. There were no real statistics for boxing, especially during a fight as the fight went on. There was nothing to speak of. There was a void there.?
Not everyone was as enthusiastic as Ross Greenburg about CompuBox.
?The purists were a little skeptical,? recalled Canobbio. ?Some of the trainers were a little skeptical. But Eddie Futch embraced it right away. Lou Duva embraced it right away. George Benton was along for the ride. I don?t think he understood everything that we were spitting out, but Lou and Dan Duva saw it as a useful tool, right from the get-go. So did Eddie Futch. If you can say he landed a flurry of punches, why can?t you say he landed 15 punches out of 20 thrown? We were just backing up what the announcers were saying. We were just backing it up in black and white, so to speak.
?We just tried to sell it to everyone at the beginning. We tried to get into the training camps. We can track your fighter in sparring. We can scout your opponent, the number of punches they throw per round, and I think some of the old-timers thought we were invading their territory. Initially it was a production tool. We never said we were going to score fights. We?re just giving you a qualitative analysis of a fighter?s output, what they?re throwing. Has it evolved into more than just a production tool? Well, yeah, because as we gathered more data over time we can tell the averages per round and what?s a good connect percentage and what?s a good amount for jabs thrown per round. We never said we?re going to replace judges. We never really intended to do that. It just so happened that over time it?s been leaned on whenever it?s a close fight, and when it?s not a close fight. We always say there?s a two percent margin of error. We never say we were going to get every punch. But if it wasn?t accurate, we wouldn?t be talking right now. I firmly believe that. If we weren?t doing something right, we wouldn?t be having this discussion.?
Among those who were less than enthusiastic, at least at first, was Larry Merchant. I asked Canobbio why he thought that was.
?He?s old school. He called it a computer toy at the beginning. The old school reporter in him, maybe there was some ego involved. I could be wrong, but maybe he felt it cut into some of his airtime, to have to go into those numbers and look at the stats. But if you look at Larry over the years, he always stirred the pot, so this was nothing new really. He was great at what he did. He was a tremendous interviewer. He always got a good angle on a fight. I respect that a lot. But I think it was the old school reporter in him: I don?t need a computer to tell me who?s winning a fight. But what we?re doing is giving grist to the mill, so to speak.
?I think we would have landed elsewhere had we not gone to HBO first, but I knew Ross Greenburg. It also fit into their format because HBO had no commercials. HBO stayed in the corners. Instead of cutting to a commercial, like in a network, they stayed in the corner. We can go to the corner, we can get the audio, and put the stats in too. So it fit well initially with their format. But we were also calling the networks back then, because CBS, NBC, and ABC were all in the business. And I had one of the network guys at ABC tell me, if you would have come to us first, we would have used you right from the start. They felt HBO was the new kid on the block and they were stealing their thunder. But it worked out fine. We were able to present the product in the right way by having it on HBO. It was a great vehicle right from the start.?
Most of us take CompuBox for granted, but it has its detractors who claim that it?s nothing more than some guys tapping a keyboard and therefore subject to human error.
?Honestly, it used to bother me more. There are always going to be critics out there. Everybody in boxing is an expert. Everybody has their own opinion. Everybody has their favorite fighters. They?re all going to see a fight a certain way. How many controversial decisions are there in boxing? We never said we?re scoring a fight. We?re just giving you a barometer of a fighter?s activity. That?s the way the program was initially developed. But if it wasn?t accurate, we wouldn?t be around for thirty years. People are going to say what they?re going to say regardless?especially now with social media being a faceless vehicle, people are going to write and say whatever they want and not have to say it to my face. They can just write it or tweet it and it?s just out there. All I know is I?m going to be doing 120 shows this year, so we must be doing something right. The people who are going to hate on it are going to hate on it and there?s not much I can do. There?s always going to be some guy sitting at home in his underwear watching the fight who?s got something to say. If it?s not CompuBox, they?re going to complain about something else. It bugs me a little bit. It used to bug me a lot more. But it is what it is.?
For those dissatisfied with CompuBox?s approach and results, there might be hope on the horizon, however distant the horizon, however watered down the hope. There is something called PunchForce, a computer sensor that can be inserted in boxing gloves which the Wall Street Journal declared in 2012, none too convincingly as it turned out, was a chance to ?Say Goodbye to Boxing Judges.?
?If they can get it to work it?s wonderful,? Canobbio said, ?but there are so many issues with putting sensors in boxing gloves. It?s the most accurate, most efficient way to do it. But there are so many different issues. First of all, how many different gloves are there now? There used to be just Everlast and Reyes. But now there have to be at least five or six manufacturers, and all those manufacturers would have to be onboard to pre-manufacture the gloves with the sensor in it. That?s one thing. Another thing is there are big issues with frequencies in certain venues. Some venues are better than others. That?s a big problem. Getting the fighters to agree to wear it is also a problem. Some said yeah, okay?especially the punchers. But there?s always a guy or trainer who has it in the back of their mind, Wow, this glove has been messed with, they put something in this glove. It?s like messing with a baseball player?s bat. A lot of times fighters don?t like their gloves messed with. That?s another issue. So there?s a bunch of red flags with that technology. There are just too many things that can go wrong, and if it?s not accurate then really what good is it? There was another thing, something around the wrist called an accelerometer. But that doesn?t measure force. It measures speed and velocity. You could infer force, but the only way to get true measure of force is to have that sensor in the striking part of the glove, in the knuckle area. We looked at closely with this company, but they just couldn?t get it to work on a consistent basis.?
Listening to Canobbio, one gets a sense that he?s not only entrenched in boxing, but that he hasn?t lost his love of the game. I asked him about the state of boxing, given its ups and downs, its eternally waxing and waning popularity.
?It?s not going anywhere,? he said. ?The audience is out there, but it could be so much more. Maybe, with network exposure, if the right matches are made, it will be a shot in the arm for boxing. The fans are out there. Despite all the crap that?s thrown at them, they still keeping coming back for more. They?ll watch what?s perceived to be a good fight. But there?s an audience out there, an audience that could grow. And with economics being the way they are, you?d be surprised how many people don?t have HBO and Showtime. You take it for granted everyone has cable. A lot of people don?t. So they?re not seeing the top fights live. It could be so much more. NBC is getting back in the game. So is Spike TV. That?s encouraging. It could have a ripple effect. It?s a whole other ballgame when it?s on network television.?
Wanting to get another take on CompuBox, specifically from someone impartial, I spoke with HBO?s Jim Lampley.
?I first started calling fights on ABC,? Lampley told me. ?The first fight I called was Tyson-Ferguson in February 1986, and CompuBox was part of the ABC telecast at that moment. I moved to HBO in 1988, and of course CompuBox was a fixture there as well. So I?ve never called a fight that didn?t have CompuBox. The one Showtime show that I did, in August of 1998 in St. Tropez, a Holyfield-Qawi doubleheader against other opponents, Lee Roy Murphy and Ossie Ocasio, probably didn?t have CompuBox. But every other show I?ve ever done had CompuBox. So obviously, I?m by reflex a proponent. It?s been, from the beginning, a foundational element for me in building the story of a fight.?
Lampley is a superb anchor and expert blow-by-blow man. He?s also in the International Boxing Hall of Fame. His boxing bona fides are a given, as is his intelligence. And there?s no one more articulate than Jim Lampley.
?I can remember all the way back to childhood, when I was first learning to be a sports fan, how helpful it was to me to understand a horse racing form and get to the point where you could actually visualize in your head what happened in the race by watching that form. The box score for basketball, baseball, football, they all have an allure that not only helps you to understand sports as you go into them, but also helps you to love them because they give you a benchmark, they give you something to attach to in appreciating and understanding what you?re learning about. I?m not going to say it was a frustration for me in my youth that boxing had no such model and no such statistical paradigm, but it was subliminally and maybe consciously clear that love of boxing and lure from boxing had to be delivered in a different way, more literate, more narrative, more impressionistic than was possible with other sports, where even if you never saw him you knew that Sammy Ball was great, he once had a 76-yard punt, that kind of thing.
?Bottom line is, when Bob came along, he did something audacious and something which I think a lot of purists were logically skeptical, and other people have attempted, most notably AIBA, the world amateur governing body, to create systems for counting punches, and they haven?t succeeded to my knowledge. Nobody has succeeded. But Bob I think, from the beginning, found the magic in the structure that requires a punch counter counting only one fighter. I think if you have people counting two fighters at one time it?s madness. You can?t possibly achieve something like functional accuracy in terms of depicting what happens in terms of a fight. But the way Bob devised it, with each person disciplined to look at one fighter at a time and count only those punches, has fostered a group of people and a system that works so well on a repeating basis that, forgive me for using them as my example, ringside scribes, hardened veterans of boxing reporting, who once would have scoffed at the notion that CompuBox didn?t mean that much, now use these numbers in their story leads to describe what has happened in fights. And most particularly, it?s the primary vehicle for sport in situations where the judges have seen one fight and everybody on media row has the other, and almost invariably, if not 100 percent invariably in that situation, the CompuBox numbers support the media view.
?So all of that I think has been a brilliant and amazing contribution to the sport. And over time, my appreciation for the accuracy and legitimacy of what they do has been constantly and overwhelmingly reinforced by a little vehicle that I see, and my colleagues see, and nobody in the general public sees. And that is that CompuBox provides a numerical analysis of the two fighters, in essence a face-to-face numerical comparison of how they match up, which gets more sophisticated in terms of, okay, what?ll this piece of numerical chemistry mean to what this guy does which seems complimentary or directly in conflict one way of the other, depending to on how these use these numbers to break down the numbers and analyze what will happen in the prizefight, and the accuracy over time of these predictions, they always make a prediction, is?I don?t want to be too extreme and say mindboggling, but it?s pretty stunning. If I want to know who?s going to win a prizefight, there?s no source of information in the world, no trainer, no fighter, no expert, none of colleagues at ringside, that I would trust as much as what the CompuBox analysis tells me is going to happen.?
I love listening to Lampley. His coherence is a thing to behold. Not constrained by time and the parameters of a fight, his language flows like a tributary of the River Styx. And while praising CompuBox is all well and good, I wondered if he could give a specific example.
?Some readers may remember that at the end of the Nicholas Walters? knockout win over Nonito Donaire last year, I quoted from the CompuBox analysis, because the concluding line of the CompuBox analysis going into that fight was something to the effect, ?This will not just be the changing of the guard, but a violent, decisive seizure of the championship by the younger, stronger, hungrier fighter.? And that was a perfect description of what was going to happen.?
I?ve had personal dealings with Canobbio and have always found him to be polite and unpretentious.
?Logic tells you if someone was going to succeed against the odds, doing what Bob has done, that that personality has to be steady, consistent, rational, in the same place day after day after day, which is necessary to develop the repeating accuracy and legitimacy of the process, and that?s who Bob is. You never get a different Bob Canobbio. Yet get the same clearheaded, thoughtful, self disciplined, devoted professional every single fight, every single day of the week that you?re with him. It never changes. And ultimately, Bob Canobbio deserves to be in the International Boxing Hall of Fame for what he has contributed to boxing. I?m presumptuous to say that. I don?t vote. I?m not their panel. But I believe Bob is a person who richly deserves inclusion.?
