Parity vs. Weakness

[CpUltravox]

This is something that's always intrigued me... it came up in the Barrera/Morales boxing thread, but it interests me across all lines of sport.

Originally posted by cubfan33
As happens in every division, the Heavys are in a down period. No depth.

I happen to think, contrary to a lot of opinion that the Heavyweight division is full of talent. It just happens that 3 fighters were SO good during their prime over the last 15 years (Holyfield, Lewis, Tyson), they set a high bar for people to reach. And because they were so good, it's been a hard standard to reach - some had the talent but lacked discipline (Buster Douglas), some have the desire, but lack the talent (Chris Byrd, David Tua), but many fighters, like Tua and Byrd would have been top-tier- perhaps even beltholders- in another time. Now, more than ever, you must be dominant on one of the three areas to win as a Heavyweight, Desire (Holyfield), skill set (Tyson), or physical size (Lewis).

You've got a span now, where the last two extended champions, Lewis and Holyfield, have established themselves in the top 15 greatest heavyweights in the history of the sport (and in the case of Evander, perhaps one of the 20 greatest fighters ever, and the greatest Cruiserweight ever). To me, that's no down period.

But I see this often in Boxing and the NFL... How do you differentiate 3 to 5 excellent teams or athelets who don't dominate each other from mediocrity?

Men's tennis, for example, right now is as boring as anything - but rich in talent. Is it in a down period?

[KCBOOMER]

The quality of a fighter is determined by his opposition being top flight or his dominance. None of the fighters you have mentioned have shown any of that.

The early Tyson showed tremendous dominance until his deviant appetites got the better of him. But who did he fight when he was good - no one. Douglas ate his way out of the ring. Lennox Lewis simply doesn't stay interested long enough to impress anyone. We all admire Holyfield for his great heart but I just don't see him as special. Maybe he is. Max Ketterman (sp?) thinks highly of him and he knows 100 times more boxing than I know.

[Skip]

Originally posted by KCBOOMER
Lennox Lewis simply doesn't stay interested long enough to impress anyone. We all admire Holyfield for his great heart but I just don't see him as special. Maybe he is. I'm not a big follower of boxing but it seems to me that (1) people claim Lewis is disinterested just because he has other interests, doesn't froth at the mouth, and (perhaps because he) speaks as a literate man with that "wah-wah" British accent, and (2) Holyfield may not be a "GREAT" heavyweight, but he is/was at least a great fighter for a lower weight class, like light-heavy or cruiser.

[Craig S.]

Originally posted by Skip
(2) Holyfield may not be a "GREAT" heavyweight, but he is/was at least a great fighter for a lower weight class, like light-heavy or cruiser.

Excellent point. He was unbeatable at cruiserweight, but he just didn't have the natural build to be a great heavyweight. His heart is what made him into a heavyweight champ.

[CpUltravox]

See... here's where I'm not sure of things. I've always taken for granted, maybe due to bias because I've always pulled for the guy, that Holyfield is one of the greatest heavyweights who ever lived. I think you can make that argument.

But I guess the question I still have is this, and on a broader point than just boxing (even though I believe I'm on the losing side of an unwinnable argument that the Heavyweight division is up now)...

How do we differentiate a down period from an up period? If one or two fighters dominate (like I think we can successfully argue that Holyfield and Lewis have since 1990), and no one can touch them, how do we know that they're head and shoulders above a good crop of fighters or a mediocre crop of fighters. I look at some of the fighters (like a Tua, Byrd, or the guy I think Lewis should fight next, Kirk Johnson) and I'm not sure they wouldn't be very competitive in other eras, too.

This is partly my fault, as tennis better poses the question than boxing.

And it's the best analogy in all of sports right now - men's tennis. Right now, there is no sport full of more equally skilled participants than men's tennis. The talent level is phenomenal. But, with no dominant set of players - is it a time of weakness for tennis? Are the Williams sisters a good pair of tennis players who dominate a crummy group of players, a great pair who dominate a good group, or a legendary pair who dominate a great group? If the third, how can we differentiate between legendary players dominating good and great players?

This subject has always interested me (albeit not as much as beanballs).

[SmedIndy]

I think the past successes of the other women in tennis show the Williams' now are dominating a great group of athletes.

[VNV Nation]

The NFL is full of mediocrity.

Before the Super Bowl this year, I said that the idea of the Rams as an all-time great team is a joke. They are no better than the Bills, who probably match up position-for-position favorably with the Rams. They are certainly not as good as the early '90s 49ers or Cowboys, or the many great teams of the 1980s, and I doubt that we will see many great teams like that again in the NFL.

Most of the "good" teams in the NFL, the ones that go 10-6 or 11-5, are about two free agents removed (either direction) from being an also ran. Certainly the Pats weren't a great team by any stretch of the imagination, nor were the Eagles, who almost beat the Rams.

In boxing, I don't think there's been a fighter of the past 15 years that could have beaten Mike Tyson in his (brief) prime. Holyfield would have been a great fight, in his prime, and Lewis might have caused some problems for him, but Tyson simply doesn't have any skills. The heavyweight division has been in serious decline ever since the days of Foreman-Ali-Frazier.

In tennis...the men's field is pretty evenly matched. There are lots of good players. But Sampras isn't the player he was, nor is Agassi...and I don't think any current players can match those guys in their respective primes, or Bjorg or McEnroe. As for the women, there has never really been more than 5-10 players capable of winning a title, and in reality, it's probably always been more like 3-4. The Williamses are clearly a cut above, and will probably rank with Monica Seles, Graf, Navartilova and Evert as the greatest players of the past 30 years.

[calexpat]

Sounds plausible, but the question is, how do we know?

I don't think we can ever know for sure whether the overall level of talent is higher in one era than another.

I think the default assumption should be that the overall distribution of talent in the population remains constant, while the level of competition in pro sports varies with changes in the population (eg desgregation in baseball, and general population growth), the likelihood that talented individuals will end up in the pros (affected perhaps by the popularity of a sport) and the technology available to turn talent into performance.

This leads to three conclusions:

1) On average, the level of competition probably improves with time, as the population grows and technology improves (though this may be offset by changes in the popularity of a given sport)

2) To some extent, individual athletes can be compared across eras by how much better they were than their peers

3) Comparing overall talent levels is virtually impossible unless there is a clear historical trend in the popularity of the sport or the eligible population (eg, we can safely say the level of snowboarding is higher now than it was 30 years ago, or that the level of play in baseball was higher in 1952 than it was in 1944.)

[VNV Nation]

Bill James actually came up with a fairly plausible system of statistical measurements to gauge the quality of play, and concludes that the quality of play in baseball has been increasing slowly but steadily for the past 125 years.

In other sports, contextual clues could be used.

In football, I think it is fairly easy to determine that the best teams are simply not as overpowering as the best teams of just a few years ago. The Cowboys and 49ers of the early to mid '90s were great dynasties and rank among the best teams in the history of the sport. One of the things that made these teams great was their depth. I don't think anyone will dispute the fact that great teams now simply cannot afford to keep around 40 good players.

The Cowboys and 49ers had virtual Pro Bowl teams; the Rams have a world-class, all-timie offense, but merely a "much-improved" defense.

In tennis...There are now probably...15-20 men capable of winning a Grand Slam event. Players are ranked by computer-generated system. One could believe that, steadily, over a period of many years, overall quality of play has improved. It is quite possible, for instance, that the No. 20 player now is better than the No. 20 player from 1982. It is probably not possible that there are 15-20 guys now as good as the best player five years ago.

[calexpat]

I don't disagree with any of that. I said you can compare individual players across eras by how much they stood out--the same is true for teams. When you have economic changes making it harder to keep players, that's more evidence that the greatest teams of the past had an advantage.

Btw, besides errors, what are James's stats?