Mickey's What If? Universe

[Mickey Merideth]

I have played TB for quite a time now, and have lurked here some time without posting, but recently felt unfulfilled with the way I was playing the game (in a pretty limited one off kind of fashion).

I have decided to take the plunge and attempt to run a historical universe and have started to think it through and put together some rules and guidelines for what I want from it.

Just wanted to say thank you to everyone for providing such a generous community and all the add ons and enhancements everyone has provided.

Im not sure yet what kind of universe it will end up being, really im going to create it slowly here and talk about the decisions im making and what they mean to me.

Hope you enjoy reading.

[Infinity]

Welcome to the boards Mickey! I love the name of your fledgling Uni, and will look forward to reading it soon!

[Mickey Merideth]

Originally Posted by Infinity

Welcome to the boards Mickey! I love the name of your fledgling Uni, and will look forward to reading it soon!

Thank you Infinty, looking foward to slowly building it. Any suggestions anyone may have are more than welcome.

[Mickey Merideth]

So my first big question after already deciding that I want a historical universe is to decide which era of boxing I wish to start in.

Being a completist and someone who likes to start at the beginning of things and being an avid reader of the earliest days of boxing, I think it will have to be in the "pioneer" era.

This raises a lot of questions straight away. If I start there, I want it to feel like that time period and not for it to be just window dressing.

Looking at cyber boxing zone they list the first heavyweight champion as being recognised in 1885 and middleweight champion the year before in 1884.

So that gives me a good time indicator as to when to start. I decide to start in 1880 for heavyweight and add the middleweight division in 1881 to build to crowning champs in 1884/85. Other divisions will start later once I have established the first two, I notice they dont have crowned champions till later anyway.

This brings me to my next question how many fighters and where do I get them from?

[Mickey Merideth]

A hard decision to be made here, I dont really want to start a division unless it has enough fighters of differing abilities to be viable and deep.

I decide on a nice round number of one hundred fighters to make any division active.

This brings a big problem though as I dont have anywhere near that amount of fighters in my database despite adding many from that era.

I currently have fifty eight heavyweights and only five middleweights active in 1880.

Mmm, I decide to comb the cyber boxing zone and add to the database any fighters mentioned there and also from the early years thread by Tostai.

Let us see where that leaves me with numbers once I have completed that.

When the Middleweight division becomes active in 1881 I could also drop quite a few heavies down into this division as it seems many guys were really blown up middles/light heavies anyway and would have been better suited here.
We can play that up in the universe and make it a big thing that certain guys are dropping down. This hopefully will also even out the numbers between the two divisions.

Any other sources of early fighters that I should maybe be drawing upon?

[Tosti]

Good luck and stick with it!

There are a few good universes run on a historical basis.

You'll be delving into historical boxing and producing your own ratings in no time.

If you need any pictures etc give me a shout.

[Jersey-Jim]

Sounds like a good idea. Look forward to following along.
When I saw your name, I remembered that I had this picture in my folder. Is this the gym you used to manage?

[Ric915]

Welcome to the community and good luck on the uni will be following along

[Mickey Merideth]

Originally Posted by Jersey-Jim

Sounds like a good idea. Look forward to following along.
When I saw your name, I remembered that I had this picture in my folder. Is this the gym you used to manage?

Hehe you got it

[Mickey Merideth]

Well counting up so far I have 58 heavies active as of my start year of 1880, so will not start trawling records at CBZ to increase this to my required number of 100 so I can start.

While im doing this I can sort out and build the rest of the universe ideas.

[Mickey Merideth]

.

[Mickey Merideth]

This is going to be a what if? universe based on a loose history. Ok the first what if will be concerning the Olympics.

In reality the first Olmpic boxing was in 1904, but ive decided to move it foward to 1880 as that will start my universe off nicely with a bang.

I will hold it every four years as in reality 1880, 1884, 1888, 1892, 1896, 1900, 1904 etc.

Instead of amateur boxers which im not tracking it will be for pro's who debuted only since the last Olympics was held. So for example if a fighter makes his debut in 1883, he is only allowed to ever enter the one Olmpic competition of 1884.

To ensure we have enough fighters to make up an Olympic Tournament, each country can enter up to four boxers at each weight on its team.

(looking at the country distribution with the beginning guys we have Australia, Great Britain, Canada, Ireland and of course USA).

I think the fighters will be chosen for their teams "off screen" automatically taking the top fours overall rating boxers of each nationality in that time period.

For the first Olympics everyone debuting in 1880 and before will be eligible.

They will then fight in a Olympic like tourney (single elimination, three two minute rounds, 3 knockdown rule, standing eight, maybe an automatic ref who is early stopapge and strict, etc).

This over the years at different weight classes should build into a nice history of young fighters every four ears who achieved medals.

Maybe the list of heavyweight gold medalists might look something like this?

1880 John L Sullivan
1884 Peter Jackson
1888 James Corbett
1892 Frank Childs
1896 Jack Johnson
1900 Marvin Hart
1904 Sam Langford

[Infinity]

Don't forget to check boxrec.com for fighter ideas as well. Also, you could create some tomato cans to round out your division if you'd like, unless you're aiming at pure histerical (pardon the bad pun) accuracy? Either way, I'm gonna enjoy this one......

[Mickey Merideth]

Originally Posted by Infinity

Don't forget to check boxrec.com for fighter ideas as well. Also, you could create some tomato cans to round out your division if you'd like, unless you're aiming at pure histerical (pardon the bad pun) accuracy? Either way, I'm gonna enjoy this one......

Yes I love Boxrec, great site. I have been creating heavyweights mainly ones and zero's from John L Sullivans extended record at CBZ and will continue to do it this way for a while.

The great thing about that is it keeps it more historical with names etc nothing like a few Jem's to keep the 19th century feel lol.

[Mad Bomber]

Mickey, welcome to the board.

[Mickey Merideth]

Im not sure how im going to match up fighters yet, but I know i dont really want to use the auto scheduler, for various reasons.

One thing I would like to include somehow is a boxers marketability or general popularity in deciding how fighters are matched up. This I feel drives boxing just as much as a fighters overall skill levels is how much money he can make everyone!.

Looking at the Draw power stat as the obvious starting point, I want to expand this to give me a wider range of numbers.

So ive created a popularity stat which I have noted down for each fighter on my excel spreadsheet for the new universe.

Its determned basically by adding these three already existing stats together.

DRAW POWER + HITTING POWER + OVERALL RATING = POPULARITY.

this gives me a beginning range for my fighters of popularity of 33 (for John L) ll the way down to 2 (for various club fighters).

Expanding the concept once we start having guys fighting they can gain and lose popularity as follows.

every stoppage loss or UN decision loss -1 popularity

Once a fighter wins a regional title (North American, European, Commanwealth) +2

Achieve Top Ten Rating +2

Achieve Number One Contender Rating +2

Fight for World Title +2

Become World Champion +5

Every Year as World Champion +2

Every 10 Stoppage Wins Scored +1

Fighter goes under .5 Winning Percentage -5

Olympic Champion +5

Olympic Silver Medalist +2

Olympic Bronze Medalist +1

Golden Gloves Champion +2

Runner Up Golden Gloves +1

Im sure I will expand this as I think of other events. Im not sure exactly how I will use populaity yet but I like it as it will show me who the greatest stars are in my universe and give another great reason to match guys up (or not!). I can forsee a lot of situations where the champion chooses the fighter with the greates popularity ala Gerry Cooney rather than the guy who maybe is ranked higher but a stinker at the box office lol.

[bear]

Welcome aboard, Mickey

[Mickey Merideth]

Well nearly there for the Heavyweights, im up to 88 now, twelve more to find.

[bear]

Yo, Mick
(Couldn't resist sdaying that.)
I like what you are doing to determine popularity. Good job.

bear

[Mickey Merideth]

Originally Posted by bear

Yo, Mick
(Couldn't resist sdaying that.)
I like what you are doing to determine popularity. Good job.

bear

Lol, yo mick is fine long as it dosent become yo Adrian!