BoxRec

Would guys like Ezzard Charles or Harold Johnson not crack the top 10 in the 70s?

Some of the fights are on youtube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7qFsEmK1gE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eA-INPlBMg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpmiJl0ERh8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O38tluWkndk

The light heavyweight division? Absolutely.
The heavyweight division? Well there might be individual years that they would sneak in. Overall, there were many heavyweights better.

Cojimar 1946 wrote:Moreover Bob Satterfield was from Marciano's era and he knocked out Cleveland Williams

Williams took the fight at literally the last minute. He had no idea he would be fighting that night. Irrelevant fight.

Cojimar 1946 wrote:I think Floyd still being highly ranked into the 70s is a pretty strong indication the era was not as strong as people think. If people have arguments to the contrary I would love to hear them. I mean, if you have evidence that Ellis, Quarry, and Bonavena were sick, injured, or paid to lose I am happy to hear it.

1.You are talking about one guy, Patterson. He was a great fighter. One great fighter does not make an entire decade great.
2. The Quarry and Ellis fights were in the 1960s, not the 1970s.
3. He didn't beat either Quarry or Ellis, though the decisions could have gone his way.

So all you really have to criticize the 1970s is Oscar Bonavena losing. A guy who was not one of the best 10 heavyweights of the 1970s lost. That;s not exactly damming evidence. George Foreman actually won the heavyweight title in the 1990s. That is stronger evidence that the 1990s was weak (it wasn't) than Bonavena losing.

The 1950s was decent. Nowhere near the 1970s.

Cojimar 1946 wrote:I would really appreciate a breakdown as to why people feel the 50s were a bad era as far as heavyweights go. These things are of course subjective but maybe someone can shed some light as to why they feel it was not a strong era.

WW2 had an affect I feel, you think how many young men were killed, injured or just ruined by that war, not just from the USA but worldwide. Marciano is a favourite of mine but I would have to admit he was fortunate to be surrounded by guys on the decline or fighting out of their natural (best) weight limit. No way Marciano would go undefeated in the 60s and 70s.

Controversial wrote:

Cojimar 1946 wrote:I would really appreciate a breakdown as to why people feel the 50s were a bad era as far as heavyweights go. These things are of course subjective but maybe someone can shed some light as to why they feel it was not a strong era.

WW2 had an affect I feel, you think how many young men were killed, injured or just ruined by that war, not just from the USA but worldwide. Marciano is a favourite of mine but I would have to admit he was fortunate to be surrounded by guys on the decline or fighting out of their natural (best) weight limit. No way Marciano would go undefeated in the 60s and 70s.

I think Ellis's and Quarry's performances against Patterson also raise questions about the 70s. The fights occurred in the 60s but both men remained top contenders well into the 70s (Ellis until 1973 and Quarry until 1975). Moreover, Patterson was probably past it at this point.

Jerry Quarry happened to lose to Eddie Machen another 1950s heavyweight. So we have two wins by heavyweights ranked in the 50s over heavyweights ranked in the 70s.

Everyone has excuses when they lose, I don't think you can dismiss Satterfield's win over Williams so easily. Was Frazier at his absolute best against Foreman? Was Tyson at his best against Douglas? Fighters sometimes are overconfident or neglect training. Lewis probably took Rahman lightly but people don't give him a pass for that loss.

Cojimar 1946 wrote:Would guys like Ezzard Charles or Harold Johnson not crack the top 10 in the 70s?

Harold Johnson pure legend fighter, of course. But..that is rating him in his own field. He doesn't have the same moxy for contention as does Jersey Joe Walcott or Ezzard Charles.

Cojimar 1946 wrote:Everyone has excuses when they lose, I don't think you can dismiss Satterfield's win over Williams so easily. Was Frazier at his absolute best against Foreman? Was Tyson at his best against Douglas? Fighters sometimes are overconfident or neglect training. Lewis probably took Rahman lightly but people don't give him a pass for that loss.

You're the only one to mention Williams and I have no idea why.

Williams is relevant because people tend to view the 60s more positively than the 50s and in Satterfield-Williams we have a 50s heavyweight beating a 60s heavyweight who was ranked highly up until 1964.

For example, part of the argument that the 70s were great is probably based on the idea that Ali is great and 70s heavyweights like Frazier and Norton were able to beat Ali. However, I don't really see any evidence that any of the guys Ali beat pre-layoff were better than the top 50s heavyweights.

George Foreman did win a heavyweight belt in the 90s but there are plenty of 90s heavyweights most would pick to beat Moorer. Some names that quickly come to mind are Lewis, Tyson, Ike Ibeabuchi, David Tua, and Riddick Bowe although there are probably others as well. Aside from Holyfield, I don't think Moorer ever beat anyone ranked in the top ten. He never fought Bowe, Lewis, Ruddock, Witherspoon, Tyson, Bruno, McCall, etc. Given that he failed to face so many of his contemporaries it is hard to judge how good he was.

In contrast Bonavena consistently tested himself against the best the division had to offer. He fought Frazier, Ali, Leotis Martin, George Chuvalo, Jimmy Ellis, etc. Moorer did not test himself the way Bonavena did.

Tony1244 wrote:

Cojimar 1946 wrote:Marciano cleaned out his era, beat the best of his time, and retired undefeated. Featwise this puts him above guys like Foreman regardless of what you think of his skills.

If they fought on their best day, I would highly favor Foreman. I am not going to say I know Foreman would win. I am not going to say someone is stupid if they think Marciano would win.

All these self proclaimed geniuses who say they laugh at fans who pick the other guy in these never to be fantasy fights must never have gotten a prediction wrong. They must have all picked Douglas over Tyson, Bentt over Morrison, etc. How did these folks get so prescient? They must all be multi millionaire gamblers who are undefeated regarding fight predictions.

One of the best words ever said on boxing forums

Boxing Writer wrote:

Tony1244 wrote:

Cojimar 1946 wrote:Marciano cleaned out his era, beat the best of his time, and retired undefeated. Featwise this puts him above guys like Foreman regardless of what you think of his skills.

If they fought on their best day, I would highly favor Foreman. I am not going to say I know Foreman would win. I am not going to say someone is stupid if they think Marciano would win.

All these self proclaimed geniuses who say they laugh at fans who pick the other guy in these never to be fantasy fights must never have gotten a prediction wrong. They must have all picked Douglas over Tyson, Bentt over Morrison, etc. How did these folks get so prescient? They must all be multi millionaire gamblers who are undefeated regarding fight predictions.

One of the best words ever said on boxing forums

100%

Too many divs talk nonsense and are legends in their own lunch time when it comes to predicting a "fantasy" fight and exactly how it would have gone down

One impression I am getting is that how people rank eras may be based on how old they are and who was active when they were growing up. I get the impression that people born in the 1950s rank Ali a lot higher than people born in the 1980s who grew up after he retired.

Are there many younger fans that rank 70s heavyweights as highly as old-timers?

Another thing I have noticed is that some people seem dismissive of the chances of 50s heavyweights against 70s heavyweights because they were smaller and some top contenders were light heavyweights. Yet these same people don't feel that the size gap between 70s heavyweights and 90s/2000s heavyweights would prevent 70s heavyweights from defeating the much bigger heavyweights of later eras. Isn't this logic a bit contradictory?

Cojimar 1946 wrote:Everyone has excuses when they lose, I don't think you can dismiss Satterfield's win over Williams so easily. Was Frazier at his absolute best against Foreman? Was Tyson at his best against Douglas? Fighters sometimes are overconfident or neglect training. Lewis probably took Rahman lightly but people don't give him a pass for that loss.

Williams didn't know hre was going to fight anyone that night. Think about what this means. Did he get enough sleep the night beofre? What was he eating during the day. He would not have had his normal equipment. And of course he couldn't have mentally prepared for a fight. This wasn't a case of him being overconfident or neglecting his training. He fought a fight that never should have happened. The fight is 100% completely irrelveant.

I find it silly the way you are calling some of these fighters belonging to this decade or that. Williams had many fights in the 1950s. Doesn't that make him a fighter of the 1950s?
Patterson fought in the 1950s, he was was a champion in the 1960s. Is he really a fighter from the 1950 or the 1960s?
Marciano, Walcott, and Charles all fought in the 1940s. Using your logic you should be saying they were fighters from the 1940s beating fighters from the 1950s. Which of course makes the 1950s look weak.

Yes Patterson fought on roughly even terms with Quarry and Ellis. If Quarry and Ellis were the very best of the 1970s you would have something. They clearly weren't.
It's not a size thing about the 1950s not being as good as the 1970s. It's simply becasue they weren't as good.

Yes, Quarry and Ellis were not the very best of the 70s but they were still top contenders and highly regarded. Quarry defeated Lyle and Shavers.

As far as size goes don't you think that if Ali was the same size as Harold Johnson he would be more beatable provided all his other attributes are the same?

Cojimar 1946 wrote:As far as size goes don't you think that if Ali was the same size as Harold Johnson he would be more beatable provided all his other attributes are the same?

That argument would apply to loads of HWs

No. Harold Johnson was a great fighter. Ali would still have been greater.
Really, these arguments for the 1950s heavyweight division being better than the 1970s aren't making much sense at all.

Ambling Alp II wrote:No. Harold Johnson was a great fighter. Ali would still have been greater.
Really, these arguments for the 1950s heavyweight division being better than the 1970s aren't making much sense at all.

it's unheard of, rank marciano where you will but he's clearly behind Ali. Then you start matching foreman, Frazier, Norton and it gets ugly.very bizarre poster.

I think the successes of Patterson and Eddie Machen are pretty strong evidence that the difference in quality between the eras is at the very least overstated. Like I said, Quarry was able to beat Shavers and Lyle. These are impressive wins, Shavers ko'd Norton not long after he gave Holmes a great fight. Ali of course was better than these guys-but the 50s also had guys better than Patterson like Liston and Marciano.