Boxing.com

I’m a big fan of the writing of A.J. Jacobs, and his penchant for social experiments of one kind or another. In fact, recently I was so inspired by his chutzpah that I managed to backburner my anxiety with strangers and run a social experiment of my very own—and since you are reading about it on Boxing.com you may have already guessed the basis.

The Experiment

Americans, particularly American Men, proclaim themselves to be sports fans. Actually, in my little experiment a solid 82% of them thought highly enough of their “broad-based sports knowledge” to consider themselves experts on the subject. I live in Massachusetts. Around these parts we are bombarded on television, radio, and print with all things Patriots, Red Sox, Celtics, and Bruins. It is a legitimate 24/7 sports area, filled with know-it-alls of every size and shape.

Let me set it up for you just a bit. You see, my social experiment was kind of a dirty little trick. My aim was innocent enough; to see how many people who consider themselves sports fans knew the first thing about boxing. However to them it was a simple exercise in pro sports in general.

The experiment was played out primarily at our two local shopping malls, but also at various pubs and bars—surprisingly, the amount of alcohol had very, very little effect on the outcomes.

My methods of data collection were simple. I just sat at a table and asked people who appeared to be likely candidates if they happened to be sports fans, and if they had a minute to partake in a quick experiment. The “getting people to talk to” part was easy. Especially at the bars.

At the end of the day, I simply wanted to know how far boxing had been pushed to the fringe of the sporting world. Not that being on the fringe is bad. Most good music is on the fringe. Double that for film, and triple that for a decent place to get news on a regular basis. However, I often hear about how boxing is “more popular than ever”—all the while finding it more and more difficult to encounter the random fan with their elbows on the bar who can help me break down why Bernard Hopkins’ 75-year-old straight right still lands on the quick guys. But I digress…back to the experiment.

My initial qualifying questions to take part in this non-scientific experiment were:

(1) Do you consider yourself a well-rounded sports fan? (97% yes)

(2) Do you watch enough different sports closely enough to qualify as an expert? (As mentioned, 82%)

Only six times in 213 contacts did someone immediately disqualify themselves as not being a well-rounded sports fan—as opposed to 175 whom considered themselves “experts.” I figured that was a fair representation.

After qualifying, the entire experiment was made up of one simple activity: To identify which of a list of athletes competed in any of the listed professional sports.

Since I was playing a trick on them, I was careful to say that some sports may have more than one athlete included, and some may have none at all. I intentionally left more athletes than types of sports so that they knew it wasn’t a straight-up matching game. By the end of the experiment I had 207 valid responses, 201 men and six women. (What can I say? I’m shy!) I left the order of the athletes and sports exactly the same for the article as I did in my experiment, with the results below.

The Athletes

Tom Brady
Paul Williams
Manny Pacquiao
Sergio Martinez
Wladimir Klitschko
David Haye
Erik Morales
Brian Viloria
Andre Ward

The Sports

Horseracing
American Football
Boxing
Soccer
Golf
Weightlifting
Baseball
Basketball
Hockey

The Results

As you can see, since I’m sure you Boxing.com readers really ARE experts in all areas of sports, I included nine boxers in the list of 10 athletes. Which for a boxing fan would make this an eyebrow-raising experience as you realized that I was picking on people who consider themselves sports fans…or is it picking on boxing fans who pretend that boxing is a mainstream sport? Anyways—not one single time did anyone catch on. Nobody.

Here are the results of the experiment, highlighted by some of the commentary I picked up from participants.

Tom Brady was a no-brainer, and functioned as my way to get people to go through the entire exercise. 100% of the people I questioned correctly matched Brady with football. I wasn’t surprised that people knew the name of the reigning MVP, but 100%? Maybe these people really ARE sports experts. After my first question a smug fellow in a Tom Brady jersey smirked at me and said, “This is gonna be pretty easy.”

It was the last one he got right.

Manny Pacquiao, also a “gimme” of sorts, was the second most accurately identified athlete. Though only by 77% of my subjects. The remainder was split between baseball (8%), golf (6%), soccer (6%), and horse racing (2%). Those who knew about Pac-Man seemed to revere him, and by association also knew Floyd Mayweather’s name. Unofficially, everyone who recognized Pacquiao thought he was going to knock Mayweather out within three rounds. Less than half of them had ever seen Mayweather fight.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the bunch was that Sergio Martinez was recognized by a sizeable 72%. The problem was that the 149 people who recognized the middleweight champion of the world’s name thought he was a GOLFER, not a boxer! But boxing came in second, right? Wrong. It was baseball again, at 14%. Only 10% of my “expert” and regular sports fans knew Sergio was a boxer, a few of whom I’m pretty sure just got lucky. The remaining handful thought Maravilla played soccer.

I won’t drag you through all of the numbers for each boxer, but here is a rundown of how many people recognized these high-level boxers—along with which sport they were most connected with.

Paul Williams
18% recognized him as a boxer. 29% thought he played basketball. One middle-aged man was convinced that The Punisher had just been drafted number one overall in the NBA draft. Apparently at 6’4 and 160 pounds, Williams as a bruising forward with a good first step.

Wladimir Klitschko
62% recognized him as a boxer. 27% had him on skates and ice. Wladimir got a lot of recognition, some of it smeared between brothers as I heard often about the Lennox Lewis fight. I was also alerted on at least a dozen occasions that I had spelled his name incorrectly.

David Haye
Only 7% guessed that he boxed. His highest was football, at nearly 30%. Hopefully Haye, who is a talented guy with a big mouth, finds his way back into the spotlight. Just when it looked like there might be an entertaining heavyweight on the horizon Haye got snuffed into oblivion.

Erik Morales
Almost exactly half, 48% got it right. Soccer picked up a heap of votes at 33%. Surprisingly, nearly everyone who thought he played soccer got his home country right—with a few Brazils tossed in for good measure. For those who knew, they remembered the Barerra fights best—though unfortunately Marco Antonio was most often referred to as “that other guy.”

Brian Viloria
Just four total votes. That’s 2% who said he boxed. Baseball edged football 38% to 34%. I don’t even know what to say. None of the four good guessers could tell me Viloria’s nickname, a shame all its own.

Andre Ward
23% nailed it, which surprised me. But football scored high again, at 53%. I don’t know why, but I found myself empathizing with the huge majority. Andre Ward really DOES sound like a football name. Anyways, 23% is among the highest—showing me that a lot more people subscribe to Showtime than I thought, and that perhaps boxing does have a future star in the making. But if not, the fringe suits most of us just fine.