What is Your Criteria For Judging Resumes?

[Tony Trick-Pony]

There's a lot of talk on here about weak resumes. I hardly ever see any threads about strong resumes. My own criteria is number one, did the fighter rise up through the ranks and become a champion? No matter which of the many titles that are there, did they win a title? Especially in this day and age, if you don't, you don't count for much. There are tons of them to win now.

Secondly, how many title fights did they compete in? Again, any fighter with a great resume has plenty of title fights on there.

Third, obviously is the quality of their opposition. Now, this is pretty subjective for most people. Some would say a fighter like Guerrero is a solid opponent whereas others wouldn't. I think for this, you have to look at the competition's resumes as well to even be able to determine this.

If they did become champions, have several title fights(preferably winning 75 percent or more of them) and their quality of opposition has been solid based on their opponents' own resumes, then I think you have a strong resume.

What is your own criteria?

[Sugar Adam Ali]

Level of opposition

Level of success

[Tony Trick-Pony]

Let's take Kostya Tszyu.

Criteria 1- Won a World Title? Yes. He won the IBF Junior Welterweight Title and won four defenses, had a no contest in another and lost the title to Vincent Phillips. Then he won the WBC Super Lightweight Title and made seven successful defenses while annexing the WBA and IBF belts.

Criteria 2- As stated above, he made plenty of successful defenses.

Criteria 3- Juan LaPorte- Held a win over Rocky Lockridge, fought many good fighters but usually lost.
Livingstone Bramble- Two wins over Ray Mancini, lots of names but generally losses
Jake Rodriguez- Wins over Charles Murray and Ray Olievera and a belt holder
Roger Mayweather- Former world champion
Rafael Ruelas- Former 135 pound champion
Miguel Angel Gonzalez- Former 135 pound champion
Julio Cesar Chavez, Sr.- Former 3-weight division, multiple wins over quality opposition
Sharmba Mitchell- Then WBA 140 pound champion
Zab Judah- Wins over veterans Micky Ward and Reggie Green as well as holding the IBF 140 pound title
Jesse james Leija- Former world champion with win over Azumah Nelson.

So in the end, I'd give his resume an A. Lots of titles, defenses and quality of opposition.

[Scipio2009]

super subjective, but I judge the resume by whether a fighter has been put in there with actual guys who have shown that they can fight.

As an example, Willie Monroe Jr (21-2). He's shown that there's some boxing craft to him, but he's been beaten by Darnell Boone (as good a gauge for prospect talent 154-175 as one could get), had moments against Golovkin, and sounded like he put out a **** performance against a Gabriel Rosado who's closer to the end than the start.

Monroe wouldn't be a terrible fight for a guy to take, but beating Monroe isn't the type of feat that'll make one's resume either.

[Redd Foxx]

I think a lot of it is context. I almost never grade the resume of a guy I haven't been following for a while. You need insights about the guys he fought, how convincingly those guys were winning before fighting said fighter, what they did after, etc.
Otherwise, just box-recing a resume results in foolish conceptions.

[!! Shawn]

There are two ways to look at it, in an absolute sense, as in how good are the fighters you have fought, and in an opportunities sense.

Lets use Floyd Mayweather for an example.

If you just look at his resume from an absolute sense of how good the fighters he fought were, he had an amazing career.

If you look at it from an opportunities sense, he could have done better. What I mean by that, is that while he built a resume of great fighters, he had the opportunity to put better names on his resume at better times, but chose not to.

Many fighters get criticized for never having fought anyone.

This happens many times when a fighter clearly dominates a division. Such as Wlad did, and GGG is doing.

From an opportunities perspective, they cleared out their division, fought the best available opponents, and nobody had a chance to make a name for themselves because their domination was so complete.

Take heavyweight for example. People will assume that the division is much stronger now, since we have fighters like Wilder, Joshua and Fury all holding belts and its competitive.

But during his reign, fighters like Wilder Joshua and Fury all got their shot at wlad and fell short.

GGG gets criticized for not fighting anyone, but if GGG was not in the middleweight division, many of the people has beaten would have had space to make a name for themselves. But with GGG beating everyone decisively, he looks pedestrian compared to a fighter like mayweather who picks his fights and leaves space in the division for other fighters to make names for themselves and be viewed as credible opponents.

I personally prefer to look at a resume in an opportunities way. Its fair to criticize fighter for fights they could have taken but didnt, but its hard to criticize fighters for fights they were unable to make.

For example, you can't really Fault Joe Calzaghe for never being able to unify with Sven Ottke.

You cant really fault Roy Jones Jr for never being able to make the fight with Dariusz Michalczewski.

You can however fault Floyd for not making the fight with Pacquiao when Pacquiao was at his best. Or the fight with Cotto, when Cotto was at his best, etc.

I personally put a high value on large title defense numbers. Its very difficult to face mandatory after mandatory and consistently win. They are fighters you don't get to chose, who may or may not be a good style matchup for you, and there are so many examples throughout boxing history of mandatory challengers upsetting established champions.

Look at Hopkin run at middleweight. For the most part he fought guys you never heard of, but what is impressive is that he kept winning year after year, fight after fight. It's what legends are made of.

The other side of the coin, you can see how a fighters resume changes. Early on Canelo's resume was great, he was taking the hard fights, win lose or draw.

Now, aside from the whole GGG situation, he has not giving a second thought to the Charlo Twins, Demetrius Andrade, or anyone else inside the top 10 in the 154 division, he is fighting guys like Liam Smith who are in the top 20.

GGG on the other hand has beaten 3 of the current top 10 middleweights in the world. Canelo has fought 2 of the top 10 at 154 if you exclude Cotto who is listed at 154 now.

[E-Sharp]

One of the ways I like judging resumes is looking at how many Ring magazine ranked boxers one has beat. It's not perfect, but it takes a little bit of the "oh, he lost so now he's a bum and was never good" bias away. The Ring's rankings aren't perfect, but I think they're a lot better than the ones the sanctioning bodies put out.

A while ago out of curiosity, I decided to make lists of these to compare resumes of rival boxers. Guys like Lennox Lewis (14/18 title fights were against The Ring-ranked fighters) and Floyd Mayweather (21/27) had really stacked resumes. On the other hand, there are guys like Dariusz Michaelczewski (8/27 and lost 2 of those fights) who faced really poor opposition.

Having one of the alphabet belts is a nice indicator too, but there are so many belts out there now that they've lost a little bit of their value imo.

[Elroy The Great]

the sport piles up lists of div top 20s. how many of these guys has a guy beaten ? simply fighting them isnt enough. you fight to win. winning beats losing. if you cant beat a top guys ass, then youre a stepping stone.

most fight fans are too in love with a certain guy to be honest about his resume. rocky marcianos resume is hardly ever criticized, for instance. yet, hes considered an ATG.

[bwilson]

I don't put as much value on big names on a resume if they beat them after they were over the hill. Often great fighters are beat by journeymen late in their careers when their skills slide. So I look at what someone has done after they get beat them rather than before. An example is Buster Douglas victory over Tyson counts more than Kevin McBride's even though they knocked out the same guy. If you beat a great champion after he is shot it shouldn't count as much as if you beat them in their prime.

[j0zef]

I think a lot of it is context. I almost never grade the resume of a guy I haven't been following for a while. You need insights about the guys he fought, how convincingly those guys were winning before fighting said fighter, what they did after, etc.
Otherwise, just box-recing a resume results in foolish conceptions.

^^^ This was a great post. I'd also add that most of the time, we need to wait a couple of years before understanding how good or bad a win or a loss was. That adds to the context.