[OC] Boxing on Jeopardy! Timeline of the most mentioned champions, Title defense analysis, and Most popular boxing movies

Posted by boreddatageek

2 comments

  1. For the past few months I’ve been trying to study every Boxing clue that has shown up on Jeopardy! Based on my research, I decided to make three charts of what I found interesting. It was tricky to lay out, and I’m happy to hear any helpful feedback on how I could have made things clearer.
    SOURCE: The data is from J-Archive, BoxRec, and IMDb.
    TOOL: I used DataWrapper and Affinity Designer to make the graphics. 

    First, I made a timeline of the boxers mentioned on Jeopardy at least twice. There are some clear favorites, and it’s interesting to see that the top 7 (Ali, Louis, Tyson, Foreman, Dempsey, Marciano, Jack Johnson, and Lamotta) have as many clues as the other 48 combined. I know the years on the left are not evenly spaced, but that was the only way I could think of to squeeze them all in. It’s also interesting to see how the popular non-heavyweights seem to come in waves as they form rivalries with each other. 

    I took those same boxers and wanted to compare their number of title fights to combined reign. I know reign length is controversial, especially with the number of titles only recognized by one of the boxing organizations. It was fun to see some lesser-known names like Armstrong and Burns who won a crazy amount of defenses. There were also a bunch of 1-2 year champs that were hard to squeeze in. Shoutout to Ken Norton who won a belt without winning a title fight (though he did beat Ali at one point, so I wouldn’t say he was undeserving).

    Oleksandr Usyk is one of the handful who have only been mentioned once on Jeopardy, but I am sure his recent unification of the heavyweight title will be mentioned again. The Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson fight has not been featured, but will surely show up. Christy Martin should also make more appearances with her Sydney Sweeney biopic on the way.

    As I read every clue in the J-Archive related to boxing, I noticed how many were about movies! Here again, we see some massive favorites, which is why I had to use a logarithmic scale for the IMDb ratings. The Rocky series, as well as the recent Oscar darlings are the most dominant. On the far left, I included 5 movies with a higher number of IMDb ratings but no Jeopardy mentions. In the lower middle, you’ll also see some of Jeopardy’s favorite oldies.

    Some famous/fictional people who are mentioned several times on Jeopardy with respect to boxing include Tony Danza, Mickey Rourke, Teddy Roosevelt, Idi Amin, Simon and Garfunkel (famous song), The Marquess of Queensberry (rules), Joyce Brothers ($64,000 Question winner), Joe Palooka (comic), and Robert Cohn (The Sun Also Rises). 

    In general, Boxing seems to show up about 20 times per Jeopardy season, or once every two weeks, and I haven’t seen a significant change over time. The only other searchable trivia collections I could find online are from Online Quiz League and LearnedLeague. They have a similar rate of about 1.5% of their clues being on boxing. 

    OQL has mentioned champs Louis, Tyson, & Pacquiao; recent Latino boxers Alvarez & Ruiz; movies Cinderella Man & Million Dollar Baby; and TV show The Contender. LL has a little more variety in their boxers, with Ali, Tyson, Holyfield, Louis, Foreman, Mancini, Corbett, & Cyborg, as well as Queensberry, Joyce Brothers, Wii Boxing, & the phrase Battle Royale.

  2. I enjoyed this bunch of data very much and find the analysis interesting, I don’t follow boxing but was surprised by not just how many names I recognized but how many faces I recognized as well.

    Presentation:
    Graphs 2 and 3 shouldnt have the image plotted on the data point. Off set it, with the name. Or if that looks to cluttered remove the image.

    The Bar graph is the ideal place for faces.

    Graph 3 should be log log i suspect, not single log.

    Excellent work with the labeling of the 2 wins per year reference line. Is there a good reference ljne for graph 3

    For graphs 2 and 3:
    Is there a real statistical trend what is it and what is its values: slope, standard deviation, goodness of fit? How does this relate to your initial graph of Jeopardy clues #?

    Analysis:
    You have 6 variables here, Title year, Jeopardy mentions, Boughts to title, Years Title was held, Movie rating, and Movie Jeopardy Clues. They are all pretty much unrelated and your plots dont lead us to any particular conclusion.

    In graph 3 why review #s versus Jeopardy clues? Is review # being used as a proxy for popularity? Is there a better metric for this? (I dont know, just asking) Review numbers seems like a poor proxy skewing for exceptionally good or bad movies.

    I see 2 obvious graphs which would tie the data together 1) wins/year vs Jeopardy Clues, 2) an improved popularity metric for movies vs Jeopary Clues.

    What qusstion are you trying to answer, it ok to not have one but it will helo make your analysis more coherent. For exanple: What is the best way to get your name used on a boxing question on Jeopardy, be a lengendary Boxer or or b a legendary boxing movie.

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