IBHOF Class of 2024: How I Voted
When October rolls around every year, I now have a new ritual: voting for the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Last year was my first year of voting and you can read about that experience here. Out of the five fighters I voted for last year, both Timothy Bradley and Carl Froch were inducted. Rafael Marquez also got in to round out the 2023 Modern Men’s Class.
This year’s class is an especially wide-open race because there are virtually no locks for induction like there have been in recent years. Without any candidates standing head and shoulders above the rest, it will be that much more difficult to predict who will get in.
The three new names added to the ballot this year were Artur Grigorian, Veeraphol Sahaprom, and Shinsuke Yamanaka. Here is some brief info on each of them:
Grigorian
Career: 1994-2009
Record: 38-1 (23 KO)
Lightweight
Title defenses: 17
Sahaprom
Career: 1994-2010
Record: 66-4-2 (46 KO)
Bantamweight
Title defenses: 14
Yamanaka
Career: 2006-2018
Record: 27-2-2 (19 KO)
Bantamweight
Title defenses: 12
Ultimately, I decided that none of those three new names deserved to be inducted because there were other holdovers on the ballot with comparable or better resumes. I also feel that being a first-ballot HOFer is a special distinction and those three new names didn’t have such spectacular careers to warrant that honor.
I then decided to review the list of holdovers from last year as a first step. Since I already had last year’s research and criteria to guide me, I whittled my list down fairly easily to the following names:
Ivan Calderon
Chris Eubank
Chris John
Dariusz Michalczewski
Michael Nunn
Gilberto Roman
Ponsaklek Wonjongkam
From that list I decided to eliminate Michael Nunn because I felt his resume was weaker upon closer inspection. Although he was a two-weight champion, his middleweight reign was far more impressive than his reign at super-middleweight. And although he made five defenses at 160 pounds, two of which were against Marlon Starling and Donald Curry, both of them were natural welterweights and at the tail end of their careers.
With my remaining list, I decided to collect a few more data points to use as tiebreakers.
The first tiebreaker I looked at was if the candidates were ever ranked in The Ring magazine’s top 10 pound-for-pound list. The only candidate to earn that distinction was Calderon, who was ranked #9 in 2008. Another check in favour of the Puerto Rican.
The last tiebreaker was to see if the remaining candidates had ever unified or attempted to unify titles in their division. The only ones to have done so were Eubank and Michalczewski. Eubank attempted to unify against heated local rival Nigel Benn in their super-middleweight rematch in 1993. But that fight was declared a draw so both men retained their respective titles. Michalczewski was successful in unifying the WBA and IBF belts with his WBO title when he beat Virgil Hill in 1997, even though he was unfairly stripped of two of those titles shortly thereafter.
Based on those tiebreakers in conjunction with my already established criteria, I decided to put checkmarks next to Calderon, Michalczewski, and Wonjongkam. I didn’t just pick them because I had done so last year; I made sure to carefully review their careers once more and see how they stacked up against the other names on the ballot.
The one knock against them was their quality of opposition. Based on the stats I collected about the percentage of their title defenses that were against contenders who were at some point ranked in The Ring top 10, Calderon was highest with 47%, while Michalczewski dropped to 26%, and Wonjongkam was lowest at 14%.
Ultimately, I felt that their dominance and longevity were enough to overcome that lower quality of opposition. And I believe there is something to be said for holding a title and defending it for many years even if it’s against less-than-stellar opposition. That’s because when you’re the champ, you have a target on your back and every contender brings their A-game when they get the chance to fight you because they might not get another one. So you know you are facing them at their best.
With three names checked off the ballot, I was allowed a maximum of two more selections. So I had to decide if Eubank, John, and Roman were worthy of checkmarks.
You could make the same case for Eubank and John, just like Michalczewski and Wonjongkam because they had long title reigns albeit against weaker opposition.
Eubank was 17-5-2 in title fights, which included 17 defenses of his super-middleweight belt. Although he scored impressive wins over the likes of Nigel Benn, Michael Watson (x 2), Thulani Malinga, and Graciano Rocchigiani, he also lost key fights to Steve Collins (x 2), Joe Calzaghe, and Carl Thompson (x 2). Yes, those losses came at the end of his career, but they cannot be ignored. Of his 17 title defenses, eight challengers (47%) were at one point ranked in The Ring top 10, which roughly represents the median value for the current names on the ballot. However, I still felt his resume lacked the quality to be inducted this year.
Similar to Eubank, Chris John made 18 successful defenses of his featherweight strap during his near decade-long reign as champion, and he was 15-1-3 in title fights. But of those 18 defenses, only 6 challengers (33%) were Ring-ranked at one point. Although he scored solid wins over Juan Manuel Marquez, Derrick Gainer, and Rocky Juarez, I felt his resume was similar to Eubank’s in that it lacked quality.
I decided to give my final checkmark to Gilberto Roman, who competed from 1981-1990 and retired with a record of 54-6-1 (35 KO). He had two separate reigns as junior bantamweight (115 lbs) champion, registering a total of 11 title defenses. He went 13-2 in title fights and of his 11 defenses, five challengers (45%) were Ring-ranked at some point. He scored notable wins over Jiro Watanabe, Edgar Monserrat, Sugar Baby Rojas (x 2), and Santos Laciar (against whom he went 1-1-1).
Roman is undoubtedly one of the best ever junior bantamweights, which is meaningful given the division’s talent-rich history. He had sublime defensive instincts and counter-punching skills, yet he wasn’t afraid to mix it up on the inside. I feel that he has done enough in terms of longevity, dominance, and resume quality to warrant induction so I gave him a checkmark. It felt good to do so especially considering that he is generally overlooked and rarely mentioned in the list of greatest Mexican fighters.
Check out his highlight below:
After doing one final review of all the names on the ballot, I was able to confidently sent off my ballot in the mail, which you can see in the image below. I am happy with my selections knowing that I compiled even more data this year and put the names through another rigorous selection process.
Now that the hard part is done, I am looking forward to the official announcement of inductees on December 1 and seeing if I played a small part in helping them achieve the highest honour in the sport.
