One of the difficulties of creating a boxing statistic is that they tend to overrate or underrate a fighter because composite numbers focus on lineage instead of present career portions. There are numerous examples of this pervasive throughout boxing?s sabremetric universe. The first that comes to mind is Ronald ?Winky? Wright?s KO Percentage. While Wright has 25 KO?s in 51 wins, he has not scored a knockout since 2002! That leaves observers expecting very little chance of him knocking out an opponent in any future fights as he continues to slow down.
When fans look back at Wright?s career, they will see numbers that will reflect how he was not in any particular moment but as a representation of his average. Oddly enough, that theory does not translate realistically. A person can go through life having never represented their average emotional distribution or, as in Wright?s case, an average performance rate.
A consistent fighter such as Carlos Baldomir might be fairly average when it comes to a performance by performance account, but even he has had unusually good nights such as his destruction of Arturo Gatti. Speaking of Gatti, when was he ever exactly halfway between annihilating his opponent and being annihilated by him? Wrap your mind around that one.
The best way to avoid the problem of composite numbers and ?realize? statistics in the realm we know is either by focusing in on stretches in a fighter?s career or using composite numbers to represent overall greatness rather than assume predictability. Both approaches have flaws, as the first fails to see the big picture and the second fails to see the details. It is argues here that the key to bridging said gap is to carry a steady arsenal of both kinds of statistics, but that is for a different day.
Assuming the use of a composite system, problems may still arise when reality butts its head into your computation. Journalists often fail to see this happening even in everyday articles when we write, ?Former WBA Heavyweight Champion yada yada yada.? Sometimes, we will write phrases like this even immediately after furiously typing four pages about all the problems associated with the WBA. After all, there must be a way to equalize the points associated with a belt. The process is sticky and uncertain. One of the four major championship belts is roughly the same as another given the chaos that goes on inside the ring. A championship fight is big and fighters can get lucky due to circumstance or fail under pressure. These are called intangible events and must be considered when making a narrative of the fighter?s history but not when cataloging a statistical index and the fighter?s placement inside of it.
On the flip side, anyone can luck out and get a belt. One championship may not have much meaning, especially when the belt is taken from a worthy competitor and put up for grabs between two unworthy competitors. Furthermore, plenty of mediocre champions have won minor belts. These belts are worth something, even if they are easier to attain.
The Belt Ratio
It?s quite simple, really. A belt is worth one half of itself. Two belts is worth one belt point and the matter is carried as an all or nothing proposition. In other words, a one time champion does not receive a half point for his championship. Instead, his career receives zero belt points. Three belts is worth to points rather than four. Five if worth four rather than six, and so on.
Defenses
A belt is only as good as its reign. The defense of one belt is worth a certain amount, but never as much as the initial championship. There are obviously flaws in weighting the matter in this way because it might benefit those who gained and lost a belt many times. It also might sometimes mistake the effects of the aforementioned policies of corruption as causes for greatness in a fighter?s career. In defense of the balance, a champion?s ability to climb off the mat from shortcomings, political or otherwise, would be a plus rather than a minus. Also, a variety of belts may indicate a variety of weight range.
This study will place the Defense to Initial Belt ratio at 3:1. That should increase by a proper amount the points total of longtime champs such as Joe Calzaghe. Again, these defense points will be all or nothing. This practice helps neutralize the various defenses against weak competitors by increasing the amount of matches required against them.
Minor Belts
Minor belts should be scaled to 1/3 as important as major belts. The same rules regarding defense points and all or nothing policies still apply. The difference is that one championship is worth .333 of a point rather than 1.0.
Defenses
Just as Minor Belts are scaled down to 1/3 size, so are defenses. For Example: If a fighter has a minor belt and holds onto it for nine defenses, he has accumulated one third the amount of points as a fighter who did the same with a regular belt.
Minor Complications
One minor complication that could arise is when a champion wins a belt and defends it for years. Though he only wins one belt and therefore receives no points for it, he does gain points from defenses of that belt. This makes his achievements a numeric accomplishment.
The Big Picture
Some proofs to help you. Proof 1 of this equation is that: (Major Belts) + (Defenses/3) + (.333Minor Belts + .333Defenses/3) = Ring Prestige (Belt Points) Proof 2 of this equation is Major Belt = 0 Proof 3 reads that 2 Major Belts = 1
The Prestigious Belt Rankings
Julio Cesar Chavez-24.333 Bernard Hopkins-23.328 Muhammad Ali-17 Oscar De La Hoya- 15 Wladimir Klitschko-11.333 Joe Calzaghe- 9.666 Ronald Wright-9.666 Floyd Mayweather- 9.333 George Foreman-8.664 Shane Mosley-8 Manny Pacquiao-7.333 Rocky Marciano- 3
Conclusion
The basic hypothesis of this numbers test was that an exercise in calculating what a belt was worth would properly rank fighters according to their ring prestige. Instead the numbers crunched into a stat that determined a strange combination of marketability and athletic ability. Furthermore, the stat only applied to fighters of the more modern eras. One reason for this is that older fighters did not have as many belts to fight for and often fight their hardest foes for no belt at all. Another is that belts that used to be major, such as the NABF Title, have now become minor trinkets. This hurt Marciano and Foreman the most. Ali was still able to land 17 points, yet another indicator of support that Ali was ?The Greatest.?
The first adjustment to the numbers would be to exclude fighters who had their most important fights in the modern era. This excludes Marciano, Foreman and Ali.
Julio Cesar Chavez-24.333 Bernard Hopkins-23.328 Oscar De La Hoya- 15 Wladimir Klitschko-11.333 Joe Calzaghe- 9.666 Ronald Wright-9.666 Floyd Mayweather- 9.333 Shane Mosley-8 Manny Pacquiao-7.333
Now, it makes sense to adjust for age. The only way to do so is by taking the oldest fighter and assuming that each man will put out maximum output until reaching his age. In this case, that man is Chavez, who quit fighting at 43. That means essentially no change for Hopkins, but alters the numbers of other boxers dramatically.
Julio Cesar Chavez-24.333 Bernard Hopkins-23.328 Oscar De La Hoya- 23 Wladimir Klitschko-23 Floyd Mayweather- 19.332 Joe Calzaghe- 14.49 Ronald Wright-13.638 Manny Pacquiao-13.618 Shane Mosley-11.429
The top of the order does not change at this point. The first shift is Mayweather?s move to the fifth position. Even so, these numbers have hurt many of the fighters that began fighting young. The reason for this is that the calculations called to take a percentage of by dividing the number of years a boxer has left until age 42 and multiplying that total by the points he had achieved so far in his career. That makes the denominator larger for fighters who, like Pacquiao, began fighting very early on in their lives.
Oddly enough, the new numbers point even more toward marketability (with the exception of the Pac Man) than the old ones did.
