The Inoue vs Crawford P4P debate has made me realize that "context" does not matter. Rant

[The Big Dunn]

Pac beat barrera, an ATG in his prime, and in his 3rd division, yet floyd was no1 pfp still?.
There's no rules for pfp for most people, just go by what you feel or who your favourite is, or kid yourself your favourite fighter would beat the guy who is a 6 or 7 division champ if same size?

Barrera had retired and came back.

Floyd beat undefeated Corrales, who was top 5 p4p.

Manny also had losses while Floyd was undefeated.

Wins and losses should matter p4p. Right?

Context.

[hugh grant]

Barrera had retired and came back.

Floyd beat undefeated Corrales, who was top 5 p4p.

Manny also had losses while Floyd was undefeated.

Wins and losses should matter p4p. Right?

Context.

Corrales being a top 10 or 5 pfp isn't too big a deal, it's just like floyd beating guerrero who they made a top 10 pf p didnt they? He isn't an ATG. Barrera was an ATG on prime, coming off great wins over hamed.
Don't matter pac had losses, years before. You can have losses and be no1 pfp. I'm sure many believed if pac was floyds size he'd beat him. That alone was reason enough to have pac above floyd, if Pacs best win being better than floyds didn't rock your boat. So why do people use arguments buds best win is better than inoues? I don't agree that's buds best win is btw, but it's a line of argument people use

[joseph5620]

Corrales being a top 10 or 5 pfp isn't too big a deal, it's just like floyd beating guerrero who they made a top 10 pf p didnt they? He isn't an ATG. Barrera was an ATG on prime, coming off great wins over hamed.
Don't matter pac had losses, years before. You can have losses and be no1 pfp. I'm sure many believed if pac was floyds size he'd beat him. That alone was reason enough to have pac above floyd, if Pacs best win being better than floyds didn't rock your boat. So why do people use arguments buds best win is better than inoues? I don't agree that's buds best win is btw, but it's a line of argument people use

Guerrero was never rated on the same level as Corrales you lying dumbass.

[hugh grant]

Guerrero was never rated on the same level as Corrales you lying dumbass.

Floyd fans actually said floyd best a top 10 pfp in guerrero? So I'm just saying don't take pf p too literally

[satiev1]

105-122 does not have the same level of opposition as 126 and up. You know why? Because of the talent pool. Even the smallest males don't walk around 105-122 and can't make weight. It's an extremely small part of the population. Inou's opposition has been utter trash to this point. He should not even be top 3 p4p. His best win is a faded donaire who got koed by walters 5 years prior and then he beat fulton who had 3 md wins against journeyman.

[billeau2]

First, let me say that boxing is my fourth favorite sport (behind Basketball, Football, and Soccer). I have been blessed to see some of the greatest fighters, and I will be blessed to see many more to come. Last month was a great month for boxing with Crawford beating Spence and Inoue beating Fulton. Both are tremendous fighters and deserve all the credit that they are receiving for their victories. But I am getting sick and tired of the fanboyism and fans not putting certain victories into context with ranking fighters. I'm also getting tired of the bias against certain fighters when it comes to criticizing resumes. To be frank, all modern fighters who are considered P4P should be criticized for their resumes.

Tyson Fury

An anomaly when it comes to the HW division (extremely skilled and athletic for his size) but his best wins were against Klitschko and Wilder. Now, I don’t think it’s far-fetched to say that Wlad is an ATG HW and Wilder may be the hardest puncher in HW history (debatable). But can we honestly say that Fury beat the best version of Wlad? No. Wald was clearly past his prime when he fought Fury, and I believe Fury ducked the rematch due to how close the first fight was. Wilder was always considered a non-skilled HW with a big punch and outside of Ortiz( who was probably a 50-year-old man at the time) he never defeated a “great” HW to deserve the hype he was receiving. So based on the circumstances surrounding Wilder and Wlad, I can’t say Fury is as special as some of the members of this board state. Hell, I have heard some posters, here, say that Fury would beat Foreman, Ali, Tyson, Lennox, and Mercer. Those guys would be the best HW in this modern era IMO.

Inoue

What can I say, the guy is pretty talented, extremely skilled, one of the hardest punchers P4P, and could hang with some of the greatest flyweights and bantamweight. But with that said, his best wins are against an out-of-prime Donaire and an inexperienced Fulton whose best win is Figueroa. Yeah, this doesn’t scream “out of the world” resume either. But…... he is still young and has a chance to prove it against top competition at 126 and at 130. Let's not forget that Rigo dominated a fresher version of Donaire and didn't receive a quarter of the hype that Inoue has received.

GGG

Was a monster in his prime and should be considered a top-25 Middleweight (based on skill alone). Unfortunately, he never had a chance to prove how great he was due to the level of competition. His official best win (yes I do agree that he beat Canelo in the first two fights) is either Danny Jacobs or Dervychencko. I do believe that GGG could’ve achieved a lot more, but he was avoided like the plague in his prime. A lot of this is not GGGs fault but I think he should’ve taken the Ward fight at 168 when he had a chance (50/50 fight).

Crawford

Now this is a very interesting one. Crawford is without a doubt a tremendous fighter and has accomplished a lot. But when you dig below the surface and use context, you will see a lot of smoke and mirrors.

• Khan was way past his prime and had already been knocked out by Canelo and Danny Garcia.
• Brook was past his best and took the fight on an 8-week notice, having to drop down to 147 from 154 (a weight class he had been in for a few years). It was so bad that his coach decided to not travel for the fight.
• Jose Benavidez was talented early in his career but was competitive on one-leg.
• Diaz was a nobody who received a lot of credit for being robbed against Peterson (another guy who was way past his best)/
• Postol was never anything special and ended up losing to other top fighters.
• Porter was one foot out of boxing. This fight should've happened three years ago.
• Errol Spence is the biggest win on Crawford's resume but this is where context needs to be applied. Based on the eye test, speculation, and rumors coming out of Spence's camp, Spence was not healthy. This is pretty evident when you compare his past performances to his performance against Crawford. Again, fighters who were lesser than Spence were more competitive against Crawford. I don't know if it was the weight, neurological damage, or a rib injury. One thing is for sure, that was not the Errol Spence we are accustomed to seeing.

As you can see, he has never defeated a true, prime, WW in his career. At 140, all his competition was suspect, and an argument could be made that Danny Garcia defeated better competition at 140.

Spence

Another talented WW who had a chance to be an ATG but blew it due to unhealthy habits outside the ring. He refused to go up to 154 when he had the chance and experienced a car wreck that may have damaged him for good. He has some decent wins at 147 but those wins are nothing special when you peel back the layers. Porter had been defeated twice by Kell Brook and Keith Thurman. Lamont Peterson was clearly done. Mikey Garcia was a blown-up WW. Ugas is extremely underrated but would lose against any prime WW. He is only 33 but we will see what he does from this point forward. But after experiencing that beating from Crawford and the car wreck, I think he is pretty much so done.

Shakur

A terrific fighter who has a chance to be one of the greatest defensive fighters in history. P4P he is the most skilled when you include defense and offense but he hasn’t put himself in a position to fight the cream-of-the-crop at 135 and 140. In divisions where you have Cruz, Keyshawn, Loma, Haney, Davis, Azum, Regis, Subriel, Ryan, and Gary Russell there is no excuse for having such a weak resume. People would kill at the opportunity to have those names on their resume, but Shakur was a fool to not accept Haney’s 25% offer. I have a feeling it’s going to be a while before we see Shakur in there with a top 5 LW or JrWW.

Davis

Tremendous power but has yet to fight a real challenge (Ryan has not peaked yet so that fight does not count imo). Same with Shakur, with all the talent from 130 to 140, there is no excuse for Davis to not have at least 2 of those names on his resume. He has been another star who has been “carefully” matched. He did, indeed, duck Loma in his prime.

Loma

Based on skills, I can’t name 5 fighters who were more skilled than prime Loma. His athleticism, mixed with pressure, defense, and work rate made him an absolute tear in his prime. But…. He lost every big fight (even though he got robbed against Haney and Salido). He should’ve become pro earlier in his career instead of staying in the amateurs for so long.

Canelo:

Hate him or love him, Canelo has the most stacked resume in boxing. He is one of the greatest Mexican fighters of all time and he has never run away from a challenge (except ducking GGG for so many years). The problem with Canelo is that he has too many questionable decisions (Trout, Cotto, GGG, and Lara).

Haney

I don't know what it is about Haney, but it seems as though he lacks the "IT" factor to be great. He is tremendously skilled and has the potential to be even better but the Loma fight exposed some flaws that other fighters can use to break him down. Outside of Loma, which was a controversial decision, he has yet to separate himself from the best at 135 and 140. We will see how his career plays out but I don't see him being the P4P king in the future.

As you can see, all these fighters who have been hyped up in the boxing community have “questionable” decisions and didn’t put themselves in the position to fight their opponents when they were at their best. When I hear people saying that Crawford and Spence would be competitive against historical WW, I laugh. And when I hear people say Shakur, Haney, and Davis would beat Duran, I shake my head. None of these guys have fought any ATGs to be ranked so high in this community.

Usyk

Won the Super Six and Cruiserweight which the deepest division at the time but has received too much credit for beating a washed-up AJ.

Bivol

Another talented fighter who does everything well but received too much credit for defeating an undersized Canelo who went up daring to be great. He needs to beat Beterbiev to earn my respect.

Jermell Charlo

He might be the most underrated of the crop but has benefitted immensely from competing in a very watered-down 154 division. Lubin was talented but way too green at the time. Harrison was a really good boxer but not necessarily great. Castano may be the best of the opponents Charlo had faced but would be a journeyman in any other era. A win over Canelo may change my view.

The reason people rank Pernell, Floyd, Pacquiao, Oscar, Tito, Duran, Hagler, Hearns, Mosley, and Leonard so high is that these guys defeated other fighters who accomplished greatness. All these guys have a long.... way to go and I'm not sure any of them will be able to accomplish such a feat.

Very astute points! Let me start with one disagreement I have with you. You are right about Fury on the whole, but that first Vlad fight was not close at all.

Your point about the questionable decisions with Canelo is right on! And then you make the caveat that Canelo has fought the names and has some credability.

What you did with this OP is use a kind of logic that allows one to make some logical inferences consistently, across the board. I hate when people single out a fight and make excuses for the results: "JOnes only beat Toney because Toney did not train, yada yada yada..." That single fight logic doesn't work with boxing because how do we really ever know what the training camps for the fight were like, the personal issues, etc. We have no way of comparing things we can only assume happened in particular fights. BUT when we look at a fighter's entire body of work, patterns DO emerge! We can see if there are certain factors that happened over and over again, whether they involve the age of the fighters, the relative ability of the fighters, etc.

This logic is often used in other enterprises: Real Estate appraisers are taught that small errors on a report compound quickly... same idea, if I make one wrong estimation for an improvement on your home, its a difference of maybe 10k, but a few of those? we could be talking a substantial error in our opinion of value.

[billeau2]

Agreed but I think it's worse in boxing to a certain extent. I respect Usyk but beating AJ does not mean you will be competitive against other top 10 HWs of all time.

Especially if we start to look at Usk's body of work and AJ. He barely beat Chisora. I give him a pass on that because he fought in a manner that needed major adjustments, which he made... But he has not been a dominant heavy weight to this point. AJ looked horrible against a version of helenus that should probably have not been sanctioned for the fight... So using your logic, I would imagine AJ will probably get smashed if he steps up again, and this will have to be considered regarding Usyk. Also, what happens when Usyk steps up again? But it should tell us how good Usyk really is eventually.

[joseph5620]

Floyd fans actually said floyd best a top 10 pfp in guerrero? So I'm just saying don't take pf p too literally

Nobody said Guerrero was a top ten pound for pound fighter. That's a lie. He was the Rings number 3 welterweight and WBC mandatory challenger. That's a fact. Stop telling lies.

[Sheldon312]

I don't disagree that P4P lists are bogus. But, in some of those cases, you clearly haven't been following the fighters from the beginning and don't remember the context yourself.

Take Inoue for an example, since most posters on here weren't following his career because he's little and fights mostly in Japan.

You say his best wins are Donaire and Fulton, but leave out Narváez, who's already been nominated for the HOF, although didn't make it in on first ballot like Donaire will?

Donaire was #4 at the time of their first fight and #1 at the time of the second, and beat the #2 ranked guy after the first fight. Yeah, he's old, but he's a first ballot HOF who was still one of the best fighters in the division.

Tim Bradley is a HOF and it doesn't mean a damn thing. Narvaez is not considered an ATG in the boxing community so this point is void. No disrespect.

If you were really going to do your due diligence, you'd look at where his opponents were ranked when he fought them. He's fought 20 title fights with 18 stoppages, and nearly half of his fights have been against champions (12, with 56 defenses between them) and opponents ranked in the top 10, 8 in the top 5. 20 of his opponents have been ranked top 10 by at least one of the sanctioning organizations. He fought a Ring ranked opponent in his 4th bout who went on to become a world champ. He's fought the #1 ranked fighter in the division in his divisional debut 3 times now, and his other divisional title fight came against the #4 ranked fighter.

Again, I don't care about rankings. All I care about is the quality of opposition you faced compare to other ATGs on your division(s).

Take a look at the resumes of other fighters. How many of them have as high a percentage of fights against ranked opponents? How many of them have fought 80% of their career fights as title fights, and half of them against world champions? How many of them have fought the best guy in the world in their divisional debuts?

Once again, it's about "quality" compared to ATGs/

He's had exactly one hard fight, in which he fought for 10 rounds with a broken orbital.

The metric for a champion is always fighting the best available competition, how well you do against them, and maintaining dominance in the division you're in. Even when you look at ATG fighters, you're going to have a tough time finding better resumes. You talk about context, but you clearly don't know the context, at the very least when it comes to the little guys, which makes it look like hypocrisy.

Don't care to mention little details like the fact that Usyk has won every title in the road in enemy territory? How many other champions can say that?

There's a lot of context you aren't mentioning that's relevant to why people rate some of these fighters.

At the end of the day, P4P is fantasy. But give me a break with your "they don't know context". People in glass houses and all that.

I respect your opinion but I disagree.

[Sheldon312]

Very astute points! Let me start with one disagreement I have with you. You are right about Fury on the whole, but that first Vlad fight was not close at all.

Your point about the questionable decisions with Canelo is right on! And then you make the caveat that Canelo has fought the names and has some credability.

What you did with this OP is use a kind of logic that allows one to make some logical inferences consistently, across the board. I hate when people single out a fight and make excuses for the results: "JOnes only beat Toney because Toney did not train, yada yada yada..." That single fight logic doesn't work with boxing because how do we really ever know what the training camps for the fight were like, the personal issues, etc. We have no way of comparing things we can only assume happened in particular fights. BUT when we look at a fighter's entire body of work, patterns DO emerge! We can see if there are certain factors that happened over and over again, whether they involve the age of the fighters, the relative ability of the fighters, etc.

This logic is often used in other enterprises: Real Estate appraisers are taught that small errors on a report compound quickly... same idea, if I make one wrong estimation for an improvement on your home, its a difference of maybe 10k, but a few of those? we could be talking a substantial error in our opinion of value.

Understandable but I hate when the boxing community starts saying like, "Fighter A is in the same class as Fighter B, due to beating Fighter C, when that version of Fighter C is nowhere close to the quality of competition that Fighter B fought when he fought them. You have people saying that Inoue is in the same class as Manny because he defeated Fulton and Donaire. You have people saying Crawford has surpassed Oscar, Titi, Vernon, and Mosley just because he beat Errol Spence who was without a doubt a shell of himself. Again, I am not making excuses for Errol or Fulton. I'm just saying that when you start comparing fighters across the board you have to take in consideration the quality of the opponents when they fought them. I am not saying that Crawford wouldn't had defeated Spence (it is very likely that he would've 5 years ago). But the Spence that showed up that fight would've lost to all the top WWs (Virgil, Ortiz, Stanionis...etc).