On the side of keeping my TBF going, I'm going to be starting a new project where I take actual fights (or series of fights) from history and run them multiple times (probably five times each) on Title Bout 2, Glory Days Boxing, and Legends of Boxing, to compare and contrasts their accuracy and strengths/weaknesses. I have Title Bout 2 and now Legends of Boxing on computer, and GDB doesn't take long to run a fight. I'll be posting results here, and I have some contests already in mind, but I thought I'd throw it up here before I start, and take suggestions. The only caveat is that the boxers should be close to their prime when they fought, because what I'm mostly interested in is a voluminous record by which to judge the accuracy of the games. So Louis vs. Marciano isn't really helpful, since we have to speculate about what a prime vs. prime matchup would look like.
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#2
Re: New Boxing Sim Project
Of course, no game is perfect; there are many moving parts. So I should preface by saying I really like each of the games I'm running these sims on, and I'll continue to play them all. I'm sure I'll end up discussing their strengths and weaknesses as I write up the results. The first matchup I chose is particularly difficult for sim games, because it has to capture an obvious truth, but one that's not so easy to create at random, and that is - styles make fights. I'm talking about 2 guys who are both very high up on the all-time list at their weight class (heavyweight), yet one completely dominated the other the two times they fought in real life: Joe Frazier, and George Foreman. Frazier only ever lost to Ali and Foreman, and he beat Ali once and almost a second time. But he was 0 for 2 against Foreman, and watching those fights, it seems like they could have run it 10 times and he'd be 0 for 10. The first game I ran it five times on was Legends of Boxing (computer version). Let's see how it went:
Foreman-Frazier I: Foreman comes out strong, winning the first three rounds on all cards, but there are no knockdowns. The 4th is even, then Frazier begins to turn it around. Both fighters suffer cuts; Frazier early and Foreman late. Neither fighter is hurt expect early in the 10th, when Foreman is wobbled, but Frazier can't follow up effectively. Frazier has a point deducted in the 11th, but does enough to capture a majority decision: 144-141 (twice), 143-143.
Foreman-Frazier II: This time Frazier comes out smoking, capturing the first couple of rounds. Foreman comes back over the next two, and it's anyone's fight. Foreman scores the first knockdown in the rivalry in the 5th, dropping Frazier for a 4-count, and follows up strong over the next two segments, but Frazier hangs on to survive the round. Three rounds later, it's Foreman who goes down, and he doesn't get back up. Frazier KO8 Foreman at 1:24. Foreman led on all cards 67-65, but had he survived the round, the likely 10-8 round for Frazier would have evened it up.
Foreman-Frazier III: Foreman gets a win, though he has to go to the cards to do it. Frazier goes down in the 5th (5 seconds, at the end of the first minute) and the 11th (in the opening 20 seconds; Foreman follows up strongly but can't put him away). Frazier is also hurt in the 6th and Foreman in the 8th. Judges have it 144-140 144-141 142-142.
Foreman-Frazier IV: Foreman suffers a deep cut under his right eye in the first. Frazier takes the next two rounds, then after Foreman is staggered late in the 4th, Frazier follows up and the fight is stopped. The amount of punishment Foreman took in this round was not excessive. This result was due to Foreman's ridiculously low (sorry, but they NEVER suffered a TKO in real life) TKO rating. Frazier TKO 4 Foreman.
Foreman-Frazier V: Frazier takes the first two rounds, but Foreman comes back strong to take the 3rd and 4th, dropping Frazier for a 3-count at the end of round 4. After an even 5th, Frazier takes control as Foreman tires, as the referee stops the contest in the 9th. This isn't a "single round" TKO as the previous fight was, but the results of accumulated punishment + Frazier's output in the round.
Frazier TKO9 Forman at 1:09
Results: Frazier 4-1 (3 KO); Foreman 1-4 (0 KO)
Grade: D-
Analysis:
The actual result that happened more than once (Foreman by stoppage) never transpired. Foreman knocked down Frazier 4 times in 5 fights, and only went down once, but in real life, Foreman dropped him 6 times in the first two rounds of their first fight. A big part of the problem was due to a couple of ratings of the boxers. LoB divides fighters into "physical" or "tactical," similar to the way Title Bout rates them as "boxers" or "sluggers," and gives fighters control ratings that may vary depending on which type of opponent he's facing. This is a great feature that is missing from Glory Days Boxing. Unfortunately, any game is as good or bad as it's ratings. Both Frazier and Foreman are rated identically - slightly better against physical fighters than tactical ones. IMO, these are not good ratings for either fighters. Frazier should rate better against tactical fighters than Foreman (compare his win in Ali I and his near-win (Ali almost gave up) in Manila to Foreman's fight against Ali. And Foreman should rate better against physical fighters than Frazier (consider their head to head matchups).
Instead, they have identical control factors against each other. If I recall correctly, in the original title bout, Frazier was an 11/10 (max 12 vs. Boxer/slugger), and Foreman was a 9/11. This is closer to the truth; against Ali, Frazier is a near perfect 11/12, while Foreman is a good-not-great 9/12 (also good for considering his loss to Jimmy Young), while against each other, Foreman would have an 11/10 advantage. Foreman is underrated on that Title Bout card, but it's getting closer.
Base control ratings don't exceed 11 in LoB. Foreman and Frazier are both 10/9 vs. Physical/Tactical. I'd make it more like 10/9 or 11/9 (Frazier) and 9/11 (Foreman). The game does a good job in giving Frazier a significant endurance edge and Foreman a significant one-punch power edge, but as mentioned, the TKO rating for Foreman is...not good. He was stopped once in his career (and he fought well into his 40s!) and that was the 10-count against Ali. He wasn't TKO'd. Ever.
Finally, LoB, like GDB, allows for special circumstances for boxers who had quirky, unique features. For example, George Chaplin's chin rating goes up 2 after the first knockdown, and Fireman Jim Flynn gets a +2 to his foul check rolls. Ken Norton's chin rating is 8 unless he's facing someone with an 8 power or better. This is the feature that could have made LoB a lot better for this matchup. Frazier has a chin rating of 6, described as "good," and toward the top of that range (5 is also good, but 7 is great) and a rating possessed by "most top contenders; some champions" (champions would more typically be 7+). He fought Ali 3 times, yet he was only ever knocked down 11 times - 8 by Foreman (in 2 fights) and 2 by Bonavena, who scored 44 knockouts in 58 wins. Frazier would be a great candidate for a split chin rating, maybe 9/4 (4 against someone with a power rating of 9 or 10+, and 9 otherwise). That would allow Foreman to do much more damage than he did in the sims, while making Frazier less vulnerable to someone like Jerry Quarry. Giving him a single rating of a 6 makes him too vulnerable to moderately powerful fighters (he only ever lost to Ali and Foreman, for God's sake), and not vulnerable enough to fighters with elite power (8 knockdowns in 2 fights against Foreman).
So, overall...really bad result for LoB here, attributable IMO to an improperly high chin rating for Frazier (against elite power), an improperly low TKO rating for Foreman, and bad control ratings for both fighters. None of the outcomes was particularly good, but the best might have been fights II and V. *IF* Frazier could have survived the early rounds, his superior endurance would have given him a chance for an ending like this later (think Ali stopping him in the 8th, and Jimmy Young dropping him in the 12th). That seems more realistic than Foreman winning the 11th, 12th, and 14th rounds against Frazier, as he did in fight III. -
#3
Re: New Boxing Sim Project
I next ran Frazier-Foreman on Title Bout 2 (computer version). Title Bout 2 (like the original) rates fighters differently depending on the style of the opponent, as Legends of Boxing does; however, the main difference here is that they make Foreman a 9/11 and Frazier a 12/10, more or less as I recalled, and as I mentioned, a better approximation than the Legends of Boxing ratings provide. One change from the original Title Bout board game is that boxers no longer have TKO ratings. It used to be that different boxers could take different amounts of punishment before a fight was stopped, depending on their rating from 1-5. So the referee would step in sooner for Ken Norton than he would for George Chuvalo. No longer. I don't particularly like this change; I think the different TKO ratings were good, but at least standardizing everything means that Foreman didn't get hosed with a bad TKO rating, as he did in Legends. ok...on to Foreman-Frazier, the Title Bout 2 series:
Foreman-Frazier I: Foreman drops Frazier twice, including early in the 2nd round, and is dropped once himself, but neither fighter can capitalize. Foreman dominates the 9th, scoring 25 points, but falls short of the 30 needed for a TKO. It's the 15th round in which Frazier scores his knockdown (shades of Ali-Frazier 1!), but they hear the final bell, and it's a one-sided win for Foreman: 144-130 146-129 144-131.
Foreman-Frazier II: Frazier goes down five times en route to a TKO loss at 2:57 of round 4. If we're judging against what happened in real life, this is certainly the most accurate sim yet. Frazier is down twice in the first and fourth, and once in the third, but he gets up every time. Foreman TKO4 Frazier.
Foreman-Frazier III: This one goes the distance. I screw up and used rounds scoring instead of the 10-point must system. Foreman won a close unanimous decision, but he scored 4 knockdowns to Frazier's 1, and it would have been more one-sided had I used the right scoring system. Frazier's superior endurance allowed him to dominate the 14th and 15th, and he might have scored a TKO had it gone one more round (Frazier's point totals in those rounds: 17, then 25; he would have needed 18 more in a third consecutive round). Frazier also had a huge second round, and he scored his knockdown in the 4th. It was the middle rounds where Foreman took control, knocking him down twice in the 5th (26 points scored) and once more in the 6th. Foreman W15 Frazier 9-6 8-7 8-6-1
Foreman-Frazier IV: Frazier wins a tentative first round, and Foreman dominates the second (26-2), hurting Frazier a few times, but not scoring a knockdown. Frazier took the third and Foreman the fourth, then Foreman has another big round (22-0) in the fifth. Foreman goes down in the 8th, but gets up at the count of four. It's even on the cards through nine, and then Foreman finally breaks through, stunning Frazier 30 seconds into the 10th. 30 seconds later, Frazier goes down for a 7 count. Halfway through the round, an uppercut drops Frazier for a second time, this time for 8. In the rounds final minute, Foreman knocks Frazier into the ropes, and with 24 seconds left, a hook drops Smokin' Joe for the third time. He's up at 8, but Foreman has just enough time to land a couple more punches, prompting the referee to intervene. Foreman TKO 10 Frazier at 2:58
Foreman-Frazier V: Foreman is all over him early, outscoring him 24-2 in the first round, despite not landing a knockdown. Frazier was stunned at one point, and his knees buckled toward the end of the round. The second and third are a little quieter. The fourth sees more action, with Frazier more than holding his own, but Foreman has a big fifth and a huge 6th, dropping Frazier in the final 30 seconds, but Joe is up at the count of two. Foreman wins the 7th, then hurts Frazier early in the 8th and follows up like a destroyer, knocking Frazier down three times in the final half of the round. Joe gets up every time, but Larry Hazard has seen enough. Foreman TKO 8 Frazier at 2:18.
Result: Foreman 5-0 (3 KO) Frazier 0-5
Grade: B+
Foreman's perfect 5-0 seems right; I just have a hard time seeing a path to victory for Frazier. Two 15-round decisions seems like two too many; hard to imagine Joe lasting that long. Even TKO 10 is a stretch, given Foreman's endurance issues compared to Joe's, but three stoppages for George is a big improvement over LoB, and we got one result (TKO 4) that is basically the perfect average of the 2 fights they actually had. Not a bad result for TB2.Comment
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