Boxing Industry Poll: Chad Dawson is #1 at 175 Pounds

Azad Championship Report - Boxing Industry Poll: Chad Dawson is #1 at 175 Pounds By Thomas Hauser Last month, an elite group of matchmakers and others with in-depth knowledge of boxing participated in the first Boxing Industry Poll. When the results were tabulated, Sergio Martinez was clearly ranked as the #1 middleweight in the world. This month, the panelists turned their attention to the light-heavyweights. Chad Dawson doesn’t have an alphabet-soup belt. But in the eyes of the experts, he’s #1 by a wide margin. The panelists were asked what would happen if ten of the best light-heavyweights in the world fought each other. This is about now; not how good a fighter was two years ago or how good he might be in the future. In reality, a round-robin tournament of this nature could never happen. It would require unmakeable matches and 45 separate fights. But sixteen of the most knowledgeable people in boxing agreed to predict the outcome of these fights. The ten light-heavyweights chosen for consideration, in alphabetical order, were Gabriel Campillo, Nathan Cleverly, Tavoris Cloud, Chad Dawson, Zsolt Erdei, Bernard Hopkins, Karo Murat, Jean Pascal, Beibut Shumenov, and Ismayl Sillakh. Twelve matchmakers participated in the poll. Listed alphabetically, they were Johnny Bos, Eric Bottjer, Tom Brown, Robert Diaz, Brad Goodman, Charles Jay, Ron Katz, Mike Marchionte, Chris Middendorf, Joe Quiamboa, Ron Scott Stevens, and Bruce Trampler. Teddy Atlas, Al Bernstein, Steve Farhood, and Dan Rafael rounded out the panel. Two of the panelists said that they were unfamiliar with Karo Murat and declined to predict an outcome for his fights. The predictions for those fights were entered on the basis of a weighted average from the other panelists. In one instance, a panelist found it difficult to separate his personal involvement with a fighter from the prediction process. Here too, so as not to deprive the fighter or his opponents of points, the bouts at issue were scored on the basis of a weighted average based on predictions of the other panelists. When the polling was done, 720 fight results were entered into the data base. Fighters were awarded one point for each win and a half-point for each draw (too close to call). A perfect score (that is, each voter predicting that the same fighter would win every one of his fights) would have been 144 points. The results are: Chad Dawson 131.5 points Bernard Hopkins 92.5 Tavoris Cloud 92 Ismayl Sillakh 88 Jean Pascal 85 Gabriel Campillo 81 Nathan Cleverly 57.5 Beibut Shumenov 44 Zsolt Erdei 37 Karo Murat 11.5 Clearly, styles make fights. By way of example, twelve of the sixteen panelists predicted that Gabriel Campillo would win a rematch against Tavoris Cloud. But Cloud finished ahead of Campillo in the voting. Fifteen of the electors think that Chad Dawson will beat Bernard Hopkins. One elector called the fight too close to call. When the two men meet in the ring on April 28th, Hopkins will try to upset the applecart as he has done many times before. A statistical breakdown of the polling results can be seen below. No sport is immune to upsets. That’s why athletic competitions are waged. Inevitably, there will be upsets that lead to a re-evaluation of the poll results. Some of the fighters listed above will improve. Others will decline. New world-class fighters will emerge. But I think that this poll offers the most credible rankings in boxing today. http://www.doghouseboxing.com/Media2/REM_Boxing_Poll_1.jpg