P4P Rankings

[jas]

ali was limited, too. so is floyd mayweather.


it's not a measurement of the most rounded fighter, but the best.

Good shout about Ali

I don't wanna take anything away from him. He is an absolute legend. He is the greatest heavyweight in my book but he did prefer fighting on the back foot

I remember watching a fight where he implores jimmy young to attack him

Go to 17:30 of the vid ,

[Sugar Adam Ali]

I like p4p lists,,, obviously there is a lot of opinion, but it makes for a good debate..

I really only think it helps a guy if he is consistently on the list like Floyd, Roy, hagler, etc were. Anyone can make the list, but it's hard to stay on year after year.. I don't put too much meaning into it, unless the guy was super highly rated p4p like when tarver beat jones, or if someone beats Floyd, etc.. Beating the #8 p4p isn't a huge historic feat, but if your the guy that beats one of the top p4p guys, it's usually huge historic win..

[brian___]

Don't count on p4p lists much. Too many different criteria's make every list different. It is not an exact science.

[soul_survivor]

in part, a list is dependent on the history of your list. guys get knocked off, and others move up in their place. if i'm not mistaken, i explained that i take into account the ability and the resume of the fighter, putting emphasis on the ability. that doesn't mean we don't consider the resume when we rank a fighter p4p, only that we're not simply ranking the resume. the guy with the best resume isn't always the best fighter. ability > resume in a contemporary p4p list. when you rank a fighter historically, you go the other way [resume > ability.]


here's my list from 1-5:

rigondeaux
ward
mayweather
pacquiao
wladimir.


pacquiao is an aging great. his legs aren't what they were. neither is his chin. he was knocked down a good deal on my list when he was stopped by marquez. after beating bradley again, a very good fighter, he went back up.

wladimir is one of the more dominant fighters in the sport, but his style still makes him appear vulnerable. he clinches the second a guy gets close enough to hit with combinations, in spite of the fact that he has a huge right hand and an underrated left hook. why doesn't he let his hands go? he protects a garbage chin. he also fights in one of the worst HW divisions of all time.


mayweather was my #1 for years, prior to the maidana fight. IIRC, i didn't bump him into #1 until the third marquez - pacquiao fight, which i thought marquez clearly won. some people are still comfortable calling him the best p4p fighter after struggling with maidana, but i won't. maidana is not elite. he was completely schooled by devon alexander. he lost to amir khan.

I understand what you're saying but let's take Rigo for example, he most definitely has an impressive defensive skill set and good speed and above average power. So there's no doubting his ability but P4P was invented because the question which arose was, "If Robinson was a heavyweight, could he beat everyone there?" The answer was yes. So the idea of ranking guys, based on who they could beat if weight was irrelevant, was born.

Yet, surely a guy with only one top level win (over Donaire) can't be ranked number one? What is the evidence to suggest that he could repeat a win or a victory of that manner over just about everyone in the sport. At times that argument could have been made for Leonard, Chavez Sr, Whitaker, RJJ and in recent times Manny and Floyd, because they had impressive performance after impressive performance over top level opponents.

We've only seen the best of Rigo's abilities once...just once. I know he has good performances pre-Donaire but that was against barely average operators. So who's to say that Rigo didn't just fluke it? I'm not saying he did but to have him number one doesn't make sense.

Pacquiao from 08-11 was clearly the best fighter on the planet, Floyd from 04-07 clearly the best at that period. Now, I think it's impossible to rank a clear number one but Rigo shouldn't really be up for contention.

How many times has Wlad proven himself against elite foes? Heavyweight has been a bad division for a while now, I'd say that Andre Ward has easily fought better opposition.

We can and should only look at elite in the confines of a weight division and a time period. Ward's two best wins are over Kessler, AA and Froch, the two best fighters besides him in the division. Would either man have been elite if he was, I dunno, fighting at feather/superfeather in the era of Barrera/Morales/Naz/Pacquiao/JMM? I highly doubt it.

So keeping that in mind, the elites of the current heavyweight division that Wlad has fought, beaten and done so easily in most cases would be:
Povetkin
Haye
Peter
Thompson
Chambers

A lot of these guys were either champions or former champions. Haye is a former two division champion with KO power (Wlad is supposed to have a weak chin, that's a true challenge) and Povetkin is an Olympic gold medalist.

Hope that answers your question.

[ShoulderRoll]

We can and should only look at elite in the confines of a weight division and a time period.

I disagree with that. You can compare the quality of different divisions, especially for the purpose of determining historical rankings or P4P lists.

Being the best of a weak division shouldn't carry the same weight as being the best of a stacked division. The quality of a resume matters.

[Mugwump]

I don't mind discussing P4P whilst half paralytic with my friends in the bar. I mean, everything makes sense when you're drunk.

What scares me are the myriad sober people who take P4P so seriously.