Pound for Pound - Can someone explain?

Wade3Iverson · Post #1 » by **Wade3Iverson** » Sun Jun 20, 2010 10:43 pm

I never understood wtf P4P ever meant? It seems so arbitrary and frankly illogical. How the hell can you even begin to compare fighters across all weight classes? And why is it that heavyweights seem to be left out of the entire P4P discussion? (except for Fedor who probably isn't even the best HW imo)

I think the logic goes like this - if BJ Penn weighed 265lbs he would destroy Brock Lesnar! This makes no sense and you would have to take into so many (biological) factors: would BJ Penn still have the same flexibility (especially in his legs which is part of the reason he's so good in guard position)? Would his stamina decrease? What about his strength and reach? Do those go up proportionally? The questions could go on and on....

Maybe I'm missing something but what does pound for pound even mean?

cowboyronnie · Post #2 » by **cowboyronnie** » Sun Jun 20, 2010 11:59 pm

trolljob?

Wade3Iverson · Post #3 » by **Wade3Iverson** » Mon Jun 21, 2010 12:00 am

Unfortunately not.

cowboyronnie · Post #4 » by **cowboyronnie** » Mon Jun 21, 2010 12:07 am

Pound-for-pound means, like, "relative dominance". It doesn't involve fantasizing of an equal weight between fighters. It asks if fighter A better relative to their weight class than fighter B is relative to their weight class.

I actually am not finding any good definitions via Google. Not even wiki is any help.

Posey H8er · Post #5 » by **Posey H8er** » Mon Jun 21, 2010 12:46 am

Fedor is in P4P lists representing HW's because there hasn't been many dominant HWs in recent years. Lesnar for example doesn't have enough fights for people to be comfortable ranking him that high. He's really only beaten legitimate guys in Couture and Mir. Whereas in the other lower weight classes there are more very skilled fighters. Fitch and Alves could possibly be argued into the top 10 to join GSP for the welterweights.

jTF2 · Post #6 » by **jTF2** » Mon Jun 21, 2010 12:53 am

Wade3Iverson wrote:I think the logic goes like this - if BJ Penn weighed 265lbs he would destroy Brock Lesnar! This makes no sense and you would have to take into so many (biological) factors: would BJ Penn still have the same flexibility (especially in his legs which is part of the reason he's so good in guard position)? Would his stamina decrease? What about his strength and reach? Do those go up proportionally? The questions could go on and on....

thats what my line of thinking goes too in regards to p4p. w/e. these discussions are usually pointless

Wade3Iverson · Post #7 » by **Wade3Iverson** » Mon Jun 21, 2010 1:05 am

cowboyronnie wrote:Pound-for-pound means, like, "relative dominance". It doesn't involve fantasizing of an equal weight between fighters. It asks if fighter A better relative to their weight class than fighter B is relative to their weight class.

I actually am not finding any good definitions via Google. Not even wiki is any help.

Hmmm, I always thought p4p was used to almost level the field. I guess I'm wrong.

But going by your definition doesn't the strength of the weight class play a significant (unintended) role? For example, the middleweight class is the weakest class imo so any good fighters in it have an exaggerated p4p ranking, right? (Same can be said about the heavyweight class up until recently)

cowboyronnie · Post #8 » by **cowboyronnie** » Mon Jun 21, 2010 1:24 am

It does level the field, just not in imagined head-to-head competition.

Yes, the difficulty of a weight class plays a factor. But a p4p force should dominate only more. Ala Anderson Silva.

Mike Hunt · Post #9 » by **Mike Hunt** » Mon Jun 21, 2010 4:32 am

I'm with Cowboyronnie. To me P4P means: Give this fighter a grade out of 10 relative to fighters in his weight class. Now compare that grade out of 10 to the grade you give a different guy in a different weight class... It's not a who would beat who if they were in the same division. It's a who is the most skilled withing their division.