How to Define “Pound-for-Pound”
January 29, 2009
In boxing, there is no more prestigious title than “pound-for-pound” best in the world. This means, in essence, you are the best fighter in the world under any conditions. Sugar Ray Robinson, Sugar Ray Leonard, Roy Jones Jr., and Floyd Mayweather, Jr. have all been at one point considered the pound-for-pound best fighter in the world. Now, it’s become common for pound-for-pound rankings to be listed among divisional rankings.
There are two schools of thought, as far as I can figure. There is the theoretical school, which means simply “who is better”, not necessarily factoring in head-to-head matchups or recent performances. This is the type of list that could have three fighters in the top ten who lost their most recent fight. The theory is that losing to other top fighters doesn’t hurt your ranking, as long as you performed well.
The other school is the practical school, which is more like NCAA football or basketball rankings. It has a foundation in theory, but also factors in head-to-head matchups and penalizes heavier for recent losses. This is a ranking that favors win-loss record and head-to-head matchups over hypothetical matchmaking.
To provide an example of the two trains of thought, take the situation involving Jermain Taylor and Bernard Hopkins. Hopkins has won proven himself at light-heavyweight over quality competition. Taylor struggled a bit at middleweight after the Hopkins wins, being criticized for his performances against Cory Spinks and Kassim Ouma, and some thought he lost his draw with Winky Wright. However, prior to those five fights, Taylor beat Hopkins twice in a row. They were undoubtedly close fights, but Taylor got the nod in both matches. That begs the question, where do you rank Taylor and Hopkins in relation to each other.
In the theoretical school, Hopkins seems to get the nod because his later victories were considered to be better wins by some. In the practical school, Taylor was still undefeated with two wins over Hopkins. How can you justify saying that Hopkins is better than Taylor when he is 0-2 against him as recently as in the last two years prior to the debate?
I think there has to be a combination of the two theories of pound-for-pound rankings. I lean towards the practical school, with a common sense amount of theoretical thrown in. This means that at the point when Hopkins was coming off of his win against Antonio Tarver, and prior to Taylor’s loss to Kelly Pavlik, I’d put Jermain Taylor ahead of Bernard Hopkins, but could see Wright being ranked ahead of both with another quality win in his proper weight class. As long as Taylor was still undefeated and fighting quality opposition, I can’t justify putting someone he’s beaten twice ahead of him. Although Wright drew with Taylor and lost to Hopkins, he lost to Bernard two to three weight classes above where he normally fights, so I would de-value the head-to-head a little. But for this to happen, Wright would need at least one, probably two good wins to move ahead of either on my rankings.
To me, pound-for-pound would be defined as follows:
The measurement of fighters against each other with no regards to actual size. To measure fighters in a pound-for-pound situation would be to compare fighters as if they were all the exact same weight. All advantages that they have in their current weight class would remain (i.e. Paul Williams is taller than most welterweights, therefore he’d have a height advantage in a PFP world). The pound-for-pound rankings indicate how fighters would fare against each other if they were all the same size.
It is for the last reason that I couldn’t put Hopkins ahead of Taylor. Since I see pound-for-pound as a way to compare fighters of different weights, fighters of the same weight who’ve fought, should be judged first and foremost on their head-to-head.
I rank fighters on a pound-for-pound scale that weighs heavily towards recent win-loss record, quality of opposition, and overall performance. No matter who they’ve fought, I have a hard time keeping anyone who just lost near the top of the list. I believe if you’ve been beaten by someone who is not already at the top of the list, you lose your case (temporarily) to be among the top ten pound-for-pound in the world.
The beauty of the pound-for-pound list is that the entire thing is fantasy. Everyone can have their own interpretation of what it means. No one is right, no one is wrong. While divisional rankings play themselves out in the ring over and over again, most fighters on the pound-for-pound list will never get in the ring together at their optimal weight class. Debating a pound-for-pound list is like debating fighters from different eras. Everyone is going to have an opinion, and everyone will have their reasons. But more often than not, we’ll never definitively know who is right and who is wrong.
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Ed. Note: This article was originally published on lukekohler.com, and has been re-edited and republished by the same author for BoxingInformer.com.
Inside the Margarito Hand Wrap Scandal
January 27, 2009
Before he even stepped in the ring to receive his beating from Shane Mosley, Antonio Margarito already suffered the biggest defeat of his career that night.
Prior to the bout, HBO’s Jim Lampley announced to boxing fans that Antonio Margarito was found to have a hard, plaster like substance in his hand wraps, and was forced to re-wrap them three times. The material was taken by Mosley’s camp upon the arrival of Mosley’s lawyer, boxed up and removed as evidence to be further tested.
Nazim Richardson, Mosley’s trainer for this fight, said that this was no accident.
“It was deliberate, but on whose part? I don’t know. For all I know the corner could have been wrapping it that way for all of his fights, and Margarito could have been just as surprised as anybody that it was wrong.”
Two samples were removed from Margarito’s wraps and sent to Sacramento where the California State Athletic Commission will test them.
Margarito’s trainer, Francisco Espinoza, denied any wrongdoing on the part of the Margarito camp:
“We did not do anything illegal. What happened was that Capetillo prepared the gauzes that are used, two weeks before [the fight] and had them in a lump with cloth that apparently was humid and therefore hardened. There was no substance like that there [the plaster]. The commission asked us to bandage his hands again and we did.”
I’m no scientist, but that sounds pretty much physically impossible to me. Gauze is not boxing specific. In my personal history, wet gauze is wet gauze. It doesn’t turn hard. And if it did, why would you use that gauze on fight night.
According to Yahoo! Sports’ Kevin Iole:
Dean Lohuis, the co-interim executive director of the California State Athletic Commission, said the piece was apparently slipped in underneath the legal tape that was already placed on Margarito’s hands by trainer Javier Capetillo.
In almost no scenario that I can think of does this end well for Margarito. No matter what the substance was, it wasn’t part of his legal hand wraps. One way or another, there was an illegal foreign object (to steal an old wrestling term) in Margarito’s hand wraps. The accusation alone could haunt him for the rest of his career.
To date, Margarito’s biggest win of his career came against Miguel Cotto, where he viciously beat and bloodied a man who had never been stopped before. Even though he got caught with the material in his tape before the Mosley fight, Margarito’s hand wraps will forever be remembered alongside a picture of a bloody Miguel Cotto.
If Margarito is found to have been sporting an illegal material in his hand wraps, and that material is deemed to be something that would harden into a plaster-like material when wet, then Margarito should never fight again. There’s a good chance that after the two wars he was just in, and the gameplan laid out by Mosley that he’ll never be the same again, but this, if true, is unforgivable. He’ll be lucky to escape this without prosecution if it is indeed true.
Not only Margarito, but anyone who was a party to, or witness of the alleged wrap-padding should be punished heavily. The person who actually put the material into Margarito’s glove after it had been legally wrapped should never again be allowed near a boxing match. That is about a half of a step away from actually trying to kill someone.
The New York Post went on to say that a doctor who was with the Mosley camp felt the material and said that it was what they use in the hospitals to make casts with. That’s scary.
Both samples were given to Mosley’s lawyer Judd Burstein, who said they felt like “plaster of Paris.” He then gave them to Lohuis with the assurance they would be secured it such a way they wouldn’t be tampered with. “It looked to me like the kind of thing that if the fight went on when (Margarito’s) hands got sweaty and it would harden so it would feel like a cast,” Burstein said.
Richardson said the blocks of hardened gauze had been packed and treated in such as way that it could make Margarito’s punches feel like bricks especially in later rounds. “As you fight the natural cushion in the gloves wear down,” Richardson said, “so by the later rounds you’re basically getting hit with that plaster in there. That kind of stuff is ridiculous.”
This is, or at least could turn out to be, an ugly situation. Margarito’s entire career will come into question, and every one of his win’s will be discredited by most people.
If this is all true, penalties should border on extreme. Boxing doesn’t need this publicity and Shane Mosley didn’t need to risk his life.
This is the kind of thing that, if confirmed, will for all intents and purposes, end a career. It’s only fair, considering it very well could have ended Mosley’s.
UPDATE: Margarito, trainer have licenses revoked.
Early 2009 Shaping Up To Be Big for Boxing
December 18, 2008
The first half of 2009 may be shaping up to be as good as the last half of 2007. Sure 2008 had some good fights, but it didn’t compare to the blockbusters of 2007.
The future, however, is bright.
Some major fights are already on the horizon, including Manny Pacquiao vs. Ricky Hatton likely in May, and Vitali Klitschko vs. David Haye in June. Those are great fights and are both great fights for the sport.
It also seems that everybody and (in the case of the Marquezes) their brother are ready to fight in the first half of the year.
How’s this sound for a potential lineup of fights:
January
- Antonio Margarito vs. Shane Mosley
- Andre Berto vs. Luis Collazo
February
- Rafael Marquez vs. Celestino Caballero
- Juan Manuel Marquez vs. Juan Diaz
- Vic Darchinyan vs. Jorge Arce
- Alfredo Angulo vs. Ricardo Mayorga
March
- Tomasz Adamek vs. BJ Flores
- Chad Dawson vs. Antonio Tarver
Not every one of those fights is set in stone, but they are all either signed or rumored to be close to signing. They’re not all the best fights (Dawson-Tarver II?), but some are fantastic (Diaz-Marquez, Darchinyan-Arce).
What made the end of 2007 so special was that guys made fights happen that we didn’t think would happen — Mayweather-Hatton, Calzaghe-Kessler, Taylor-Pavlik, etc.
Until we see the top fighters in the ring with each other (Pacquiao-Hatton, Klitschko-Haye – good job; Kessler-Hopkins, Calzaghe-Dawson, Wladimir-Valuev, etc. – need to get going), boxing will be stagnant.
There are many combinations of great fights that can be made, but not if fighters are only looking after the interests of their wallets. For the good of the sport, fighters need to make great fights. If they do that, the will get paid eventually.
In addition to the quality fights mentioned above, you can also expect to see Michael Katsidis, Kelly Pavlik, Miguel Cotto, Clinton Woods, Yuriorkis Gamboa, Nate Campbell, and more than likely Mikkel Kessler fighting in America.
For me, that’s a good start to 2009. Hopefully it will end even better than it begins.