The best Cruiserweight era?

[DrDuke]

A one of the youngest divisions, obscure for some period, but more and more memorable with time, as it's about big and hard-hitting guys, almost heavyweights.

The 1980s. The division was created with the start of the decade. Early on the likes of Camel, De Leon, Qawi, Spinks and etc were featured in some good fights. After a roll of the titles there came The Real Deal and destroyed everybody. The most memorable fight was obviously the first one of Holyfield and Qawi, which was followed by the punishing hegemony of Evander, which brough a lot of one-sided, but spectacular demolitions.

The 1990s. The era, when nobody gave a damn about the division. It had some decent by the eye-test guys, like Wamba, Michalczewski, Norris, Miller, Tiozzo, Gomez, but they often fought nonames without a desire to unify and didn't provide a lot of spectacle. Of course, it's in the poll formaly, but who knows, maybe we have any fans of Norris or Gomez?

The 2000s. The division started to get popular. Toney-Jirov was super-exciting, a kinda opener for the good times. Then there came guys like Mormeck, Bell, Braithwaite, Haye, Adamek, Cunningham, Wlodarczyk, Huck, Hernandez. There were such great fights, like Haye-Maccarinelli, Haye-Mormeck, Hernandez-Braithwaite, Cunningham-Adamek (Cunningham vs nearly everybody, actually). Haye unified it to the biggest extent in this decade, but moved up and caused another split of the belts.

The 2010s. The decade started with the hometown hegemonies of Huck with WBO, Hernandez with IBF and a bit less hometown hegemony of Wlodarczyk with the WBC, although there were some good fights, like Huck against Lebedev and Glowacki and Hernandez against the road warrior Cunningham, Wlodarczyk against Chakhkiev and Drozd. The WBA a bit later also had its hometown hegemony, by Lebedev, but later he unified and his fights against Guillermo Jones and Murat Gassiev were good. Then there came the two seasons of the WBSS, the division got his new stars, like Usyk, Briedis, Gassiev, Glowacki and Dorticos, new unified champs and the second ever undisputed champion.

My vote goes to the 2010s. The 2000s > the 1980s, as the 2000s featured more competition. The 1990s sucked, all great stuff was in the upper division then.

[margaret thatcher]

you gotta also be really high on the era of michael rush, jason robinson, terry mcgrroom, sione asipeli, and the other usba/nabf level dudes of the early 2000s. people rate the likes of usyk today, but beating numerous world class champs and contenders doesn't compare beating 10 round beasts like that!

obviously all those guys are top 25 atg cruisers and it's super easy to list big wins they had

[DrDuke]

you gotta also be really high on the era of michael rush, jason robinson, terry mcgrroom, sione asipeli, and the other usba/nabf level dudes of the early 2000s. people rate the likes of usyk today, but beating numerous world class champs and contenders doesn't compare beating 10 round beasts like that!

obviously all those guys are top 25 atg cruisers and it's super easy to list big wins they had

Oh, how I forgot them. Shame on me. Terry McGroom knocking out the great Ed Strickland in the 1st round was a total shocker, possibly the biggest upset ever and the most brutal stoppage of all times. And Jason Robinson vs then undefeated top contender Gary Wilcox was a Thrilla in Detroit, the most dramatic slugfest boxing history had ever seen.