Boxing Stats – Reach Matters

Jan 18, 2008
Jason

Its been a while since I’ve posted about boxing, but just recently, I did an analysis based on reach measurements. I researched all the way back to the beginnings of boxing, to determine whether or not the boxer with the longer reach won much more often.

I discovered that a boxer with any reach advantage at all won 57.1% of the time (excluding draws). At two inches or more, this went up to 58.4%. It progressively increased all the way up to 64.6% at 8 inches or more. At 10 inches or more, the number actually dropped, but I attribute this to the small subset, and because some “freak” match-ups may contaminate the results.

Some say its not the size that matters, but these results suggest more than a negligible difference. They suggest size DOES matter.  You might’ve suspected such results with regards to height, but did you expect it with regards to reach alone?

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