How Far Away Is Froch From Being a Pound 4 Pounder?

[amat]

I suppose p4p is subjective. You can go on resume, or you can go on actual performances, or a mixture of both.

I just have a hard time believing a guy who holds wins over Dirrell, Taylor, Pascal and if he beat him, Abraham, doesn't even register with most people as being anywhere near worthy. I can understand if you are judging purely on talent alone, because being honest, he is nowhere near. But talent alone doesn't win you fights and it doesn't necessarily make you a good fighter.

I hear the calls for him cleaning out Super-Middleweight, but Super-middleweight is absolutely stacked with talent, and by the time he got round to fighting everyone, he'd be about 37.

It's just a shame really, because guys like Hatton cleaned up a pretty weak 140 and that earns him respect, wheras it will be very tough for any fighter at 168 to clean up, as the range of talent means that it's quite likely that somebody has the style to beat you.

As for him losing around 30 rounds in hist last half dozen fights, i think you have to take into consideration his style. Guys like Ward are slick, so they won't give too many rounds away. Froch goes to war, and leaves himself open. He'll lose rounds, but that shouldn't take away from his victories.

The reason i even brought this was up was basically because i was looking at the p4p rankings, and Marquez and Mosley are both in the top 5, despite Mosley losing to Cotto, looking awful against Mayorga and losing soundly to MAyweather. Marquez is in the top 3, despite many people on here believing he's struggled greatly with Casamayor and Diaz, and of course he was easily beaten by Mayweather.

Then i look at Sergio Martinez who is number 7, and he's only really gone 1-1-1 against Williams, Pavlik and CIntron. IS that any better than Froch going 3-1 against Taylor, Pascal, Dirrell and Kessler (two of those in his opponents backyard)? I mean, even Williams has question marks hanging over him...

So that begs the question, how do people on here form their p4p lists? What criteria do you all use? Do you all list a few bankers (Mayweather, Pacquiao, JMM, Mosley etc) and then add a few of the champions from the lower weights, after checking them out on Boxrec - of course pretending you've watched them fight more than twice?

I'm genuinley interested. For me, the p4p top ten is full with dark clouds and question marks. It needs shaking up. I can't help but feel a few fighters are holding down spots based on their past reputations, and maybe because there are no obvious front runners to take over the mantle.

When all that is said and done, if he beats Abraham, for me Froch is pushing 10th. He has to be...

This is a good post so I'll quote it, forgive it for being long.

First I'll address Froch. No, I don't have Froch near my top 10 list but I will still admit he has some good wins. However, the list is subjective, meaning it doesn't have to be by the book. To me, he didn't come close to winning against Dirrell. I had it 9-3, anything closer then 8-4 is just kind of ridiculous to me and if you think any differently then me and you are just of entirely different schools of thoughts. A gifted (imo) win by the judges might be enough to improve your divisional ranking (it's only fair) but with something so touchy like P4P ratings, it is pretty much worthless. I am never going to think Froch was the better man that night just because he got the win in that fight.

For the Martinez comparision, Martinez is number 7 in the rankings because he is just a better pound for pound fighter then Froch. Yeah the Cintron bout may show up as a draw on his record but anyone who thinks that fight was actually a draw, or that Froch fought a better fight against Dirrell then Martinez did Cintron simply doesn't have a clue. This is my opinion of course, yet that's what the pound for pound rankings are about.

What I'll give Froch is that he did better in the Kessler fight then I expected him to do but he still lost (I think he lost too) and that he is a better fighter (a much better fighter) then what I had previously given him credit for. However, I just don't think he has the skills to match up anywhere close with a great little fighter like Sergio Martinez. I don't care what the record says, I'm just judging how they performed against fairly similar levels of talent and I think Martinez has performed better even if on paper it's not immediately apparent.

The part about your post I love is about how people make up their P4P lists. I think for the most part, it's all recycled. I'm perfectly content with someone putting Guillermo Rigondeaux in their top 10 P4P if they truly believed that he was one of the top 10 in the sport. To avoid looking ridiculous, I put in the criteria that to be top 10 P4P, you should probably at least be top 10 in your division. Other then that, I throw the records completely out of the window and just look at what I see in the ring. I made one a while back and put Bradley at 3. I think so many of these lists are just recycled and I think the little guys are included FAR to easily. I think the biggest problem with the pound for pound lists are just that there simply isn't enough variety.