Beginning this month Cox's Corner is sponsoring a computer tournament featuring 32 of the greatest heavyweights of all time. I will be using a popular computer program that rates the fighters in a number of categories including power, chin, recovery, resistance to cuts, killer instinct, aggressiveness, endurance, defense, as well as their styles, punching skill and technique. This is for entertainment purposes only. The results should be interesting but do not necessarily reflect the views of the author of this site. Round OneClick Here
Rules:
The tournament will be a double elimination round robin. Since styles make fights, and upsets do occur, a fighter cannot be elimintated by a single loss. It will take two defeats to eliminate a fighter from the tournament.
Since it is a round-robin there will be rounds with an odd man. Bye's will be chosen randomly by me, the referee of the tourney.
In case of a draw both fighters will advance to the next round without an immediate rematch.
Fighters from the same era who actually fought, e.g. Ali-Frazier-Foreman, or Louis-Schmeling-Baer, etc. cannnot meet in the tournament unless it is in the semi-finals or finals.
Fighters who met when one fighter was well past there peak can occur in any round, for example Ali-Holmes, Louis-Marciano, Johnson-Jeffries.
In the final stages if there are three fighters left at the end of the tourney, the fighter with the best record will get the bye, and the other two will fight for the right to meet him in the championship final. If all records are the same (one loss, no draws, for example), a random choice will be made.
All Fights are scheduled for 15 rounds which was the standard for most of the 20th century.
There is no standing 8 count, the three knockdown rule is waved, and one cannot be saved by the bell in any round. This is for the championship of all-time!
The first round pairings will be chosen at random. Second round will feature winners against losers. Proceeding rounds will feature winners against losers until there are no unbeaten fighters in a round, and then fighters with one loss will face fighters with one loss. Two losses eliminates a fighter from the tournament.At the end of the Tournament a rating list of the fighters will be posted based on their tournament records with the champion rated number 1, the runner-up number 2, etc.
Many of the fighters stats have been changed from the original game to more correctly indicate their true abilities. However, just because a fighter is rated higher than another statistically does not mean he will win their individual match.