David McWater & His Moneyball-Like Tactics In Measuring Prospects

[Eff Pandas]

Been aware of David McWater for years now after noticing him acquiring several top Michigan prospects I had my eye on early. Noticed him getting bigger prospects as I kept a closer eye on him.

Now after hearing him talk for the first time at a decent length (he was on a recent Boxing Esq podcast episode) I've become fascinated with this cat as apparently he's got this whole system of measuring amateurs thats gotten him a who's who list of the top up & coming guys in boxing as a no name guy in the sport.

Curious if anyone knows more about his system or if they have heard of other systems for ranking fighters liklihood for success as a pro & what that system looks like?

And randomly he also vaguely discussed having a pro points system that he thinks is superior to Boxrec.

Been saying for years there is massive upside with statistics in boxing for someone who finds a way to use them with success.

And for the record I don't think its 100% proven this guy has found some cheat code to prospects as its still primarily a theory in motion thats being tested as we speak, but it sounds like worse case he's onto sonething with this based on the success & growth I've seen from him just in the last couple years.

[LacedUp]

Do you have a link? I'd like to hear more about this

[Eff Pandas]

Do you have a link? I'd like to hear more about this

Edit: *'d part is r i n g t v. F#ck you NSB for this silly ass censoring bs all the time. Obviously dig the forum & most of the content but wtf with this outdated bs.

And here's a quote from that link above for those who might not be able to listen to this whole episode right off or wanna know a lil more about this before spending 80 minutes on a podcast.

His use of proprietary software and analytics to evaluate boxers similar to Billy Beane’s “Moneyball” in baseball:

“I swear by it… I’ve been doing baseball research for 35 years, tons of stuff. One of the reasons I chose to go into boxing instead of anything else was I felt it was the last frontier for analytics. Nobody was doing it. As I’ve learned now, nobody’s doing scouting, much less doing analytics. So, I felt like it would be a huge leg up if I could do something like that. So, I’ve done dozens and dozens of studies, all of various value depending on how you look at them. We’ve also sort of melded them together to come up with a formula that predicts the likelihood of a kid in a neutral situation, because we’re basing it on where he was as an amateur. So, it’s promoter neutral, trainer neutral – of (the likelihood) fighting for a world title, which is sort of the benchmark we have for being successful.”

[Randall Cunning]

Heres one of their scouting reports

[The Conundrum]

This is the same guy who is gonna get Baranchyk into a ton of legal issues for leaving the WBSS & stripped of his world title simply because he is scared to death of his fighter having to face Josh Taylor. Hopefully he sees sense soon

[Eff Pandas]

This is the same guy who is gonna get Baranchyk into a ton of legal issues for leaving the WBSS & stripped of his world title simply because he is scared to death of his fighter having to face Josh Taylor. Hopefully he sees sense soon

He could get some legal problems over that situation but thats not really relevant to my angle with him.

And I'd argue he's in a no win situation with the WBSS potentially so its an L at any decision being made & while being a fan of both McWater & the WBSS I gotta side with the fighter getting paid which is being shown to be an issue with the fights being pushed back by several months & WBSS being unwilling to escrow money to insure fighters get paid.

I don't think McWater's decision to protect his fighter is about protecting him from Josh (who I believe loses to Josh), but about protecting him via insuring he's getting paid.

The WBSS is f#cking up by leaving these guys on the sidelines for too long cuz their investors are bsing or just don't have the money to pay guys for past or future fights. I mean go look at that bs the WBSS has claimed with fighters not being paid cuz they didn't send the WBSS some special little form or some such weird sh^t. If guys don't get paid til they send the WBSS guys some special inventory sheet or w/e it is then I as the WBSS communicate that better with the fighters so its not a bad look for all of us as fighters not being paid is always going to be.

And even if thats the case why are fights just getting made for the semifinals when the seminfinals were already over or mostly over this time last year? Thats the red flag everyone who's paying attention is seeing.

Hopefully the WBSS gets bought out by some more reputable people or they find some more respectable investors before season 3 cuz this is a great idea, but the current money guys behind the scene are damaging the WBSS name before the WBSS has anywhere close to the name it could have in the future if they can make this work long term.

[Eff Pandas]

Heres one of their scouting reports

Thats one of the best scouting reports on a boxer I've ever seen & I used to subscribe to a prospect newsletter back in the day & still watch sites that have lists of too watch amateurs & young pros.

Any more of these around online by chance that you're aware of?

Randomly for some more discussion on the formula he's come up with apparently the main component of his system is determing the odds on a guy fighting for a title one day. He's a huge stat dork apparently & figured out that something like 8% of guys who sign with a promoter upon his debut find their way to a title fight. And apparently TR is an outlier with having 12% of their guys fight for a title.

From that base logic he's made a system where he's only signing guys who he's determined have iirc a 30% (300pts) chance to fight for a title one day which theoretically if those numbers work out in reality should make him the per capita most successful manager in the game.

He discussed several guys point totals or where they ranked overall in their class during the podcast & the main things I recalled during all that talk (I need to re-listen to it & take f#cking notes he brings up so much sh^t) is that Teofimo Lopez had like a 630ish score, that Shakur Stevenson was 4th outta his graduating class & that this OJ3 guy who just turned pro won an amazing 21 US tourbaments in a row which while maybe related to his formula or not I found hugely impressive.

[Randall Cunning]

Thats one of the best scouting reports on a boxer I've ever seen & I used to subscribe to a prospect newsletter back in the day & still watch sites that have lists of too watch amateurs & young pros.

Any more of these around online by chance that you're aware of?

Randomly for some more discussion on the formula he's come up with apparently the main component of his system is determing the odds on a guy fighting for a title one day. He's a huge stat dork apparently & figured out that something like 8% of guys who sign with a promoter upon his debut find their way to a title fight. And apparently TR is an outlier with having 12% of their guys fight for a title.

From that base logic he's made a system where he's only signing guys who he's determined have iirc a 30% (300pts) chance to fight for a title one day which theoretically if those numbers work out in reality should make him the per capita most successful manager in the game.

He discussed several guys point totals or where they ranked overall in their class during the podcast & the main things I recalled during all that talk (I need to re-listen to it & take f#cking notes he brings up so much sh^t) is that Teofimo Lopez had like a 630ish score, that Shakur Stevenson was 4th outta his graduating class & that this OJ3 guy who just turned pro won an amazing 21 US tourbaments in a row which while maybe related to his formula or not I found hugely impressive.

I think theres 2 guys involved mainly. Tim Van Newhouse done that scouting report, believe theyre partners in Split-T management. Ive heard a lot of people raving about them. They brought Pacheco and Otha Jones to Matchroom.

Not heard about this points system though, I'll check out that podcast

[The Big Dunn]

Heres one of their scouting reports

thats a real solid write up. Thanks for posting dude.

[Clegg]

He could get some legal problems over that situation but thats not really relevant to my angle with him.

And I'd argue he's in a no win situation with the WBSS potentially so its an L at any decision being made & while being a fan of both McWater & the WBSS I gotta side with the fighter getting paid which is being shown to be an issue with the fights being pushed back by several months & WBSS being unwilling to escrow money to insure fighters get paid.

I don't think McWater's decision to protect his fighter is about protecting him from Josh (who I believe loses to Josh), but about protecting him via insuring he's getting paid.

The WBSS is f#cking up by leaving these guys on the sidelines for too long cuz their investors are bsing or just don't have the money to pay guys for past or future fights. I mean go look at that bs the WBSS has claimed with fighters not being paid cuz they didn't send the WBSS some special little form or some such weird sh^t. If guys don't get paid til they send the WBSS guys some special inventory sheet or w/e it is then I as the WBSS communicate that better with the fighters so its not a bad look for all of us as fighters not being paid is always going to be.

And even if thats the case why are fights just getting made for the semifinals when the seminfinals were already over or mostly over this time last year? Thats the red flag everyone who's paying attention is seeing.

Hopefully the WBSS gets bought out by some more reputable people or they find some more respectable investors before season 3 cuz this is a great idea, but the current money guys behind the scene are damaging the WBSS name before the WBSS has anywhere close to the name it could have in the future if they can make this work long term.

All valid points, WBSS haven't handled things well. But Ivan is the only guy to pull out which seems questionable. Ridiculous that he pulled out in Jan but WBSS still promoting the fight, it looks like amateur hour all day long with them recently. WBSS is on DAZN as is Hooker, they should've secured him by now.