In recent times boxers have become overly obsessed with maintaining a perfect record. I think this has hurt the sport significantly as fighters are taking less risks to ensure they don't lose their "0". Look at recent accusations against the likes of Joe Calzaghe and Floyd Mayweather for not fighting the best available competition. Calzaghe and Roy Jones Jr. never fought for several years as both of them maintained their perfect records. We are seeing less and less of best fighting against best and this is terrible for the fans. I think we have put too much of an emphasis on the perfect record. In reality, it doesn't mean much. Look at the early losses of Manny Pacquiao - he was still young and developing as a fighter when he got knocked out in two earlier fights. Pacquiao is now the pound for pound king of the ring. Many great fighters have suffered losses. I would argue that being able to come back from those losses are what make you truly great. Look at Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Robinson - both of them had wars and experienced losses in their career but their place in history will never be questioned. Calzaghe ended his career undefeated (at least for now) and will not be in the same league as Roy Jones Jr. or Bernard Hopkins when looking back on history. Both Hopkins and Jones have suffered several losses in their careers. However, they fought several top ten pound for pound fighters (especially Hopkins). Calzaghe only fought one top ten pound for pound fighter in his career and that was a 43 year old Bernhard Hopkins.
If we look at more recent examples, we can see how 21-year old Amir Khan's career was almost proclaimed dead after he lost to 25-year old Breidis Prescott. Khan was and still is young and developing as a fighter - he will make mistakes. He may or may not develop into a world champion but writing him off after a loss at 21 makes no sense.
Looking at the current pound for pound list we see the likes of Pacquiao, Juan Manuel Marquez, Bernard Hopkins, Shane Mosley and Paul Williams. All of them have suffered losses in their career. Not even one is undefeated. In fact, all of them have early career losses.
We need to put an emphasis on level of competition versus record. Records are relatively meaningless. Only the fans will benefit if the boxing world starts to understand that and give us the best fights out there rather than trying to defend and promote fighters with perfect records.
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I agree with your general point. However, I would question a couple of the examples you give, namely:
ReplyDelete1 - Calzaghe never "avoided" Jones, Hopkins or whoever else earlier in his career in order to protect an unbeaten record. He just couldn't possibly have enticed these guys into the ring back then. Like Roy Jones himself said, back then Joe was too much risk for not enough reward. There was nothing Calzaghe could have done to make those fights happen.
2 - Amir Khan wasn't being written off due to having one loss. He was/is being written off for having a weak chin, and this is a verdict based on several off his fights stretching all the way back to the amateurs. He has been dropped heavily several times, including a couple of times by non-punchers. And *that* is why a lot of people think he will never become a truly great fighter. It isn't just because he lost one fight.