BoxRec

Boxings heavyweight division. ----- Which was its greatest era?

Was it when James J. Jeffries was at his prime?


Was it when Jack Johnson was at his peak?


Was it when Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney were in their primes?


Was it when Joe Louis was at his peak?


Was it when Rocky Marciano was at his prime?


Was it the era when Muhammad Ali was at his peak?


Was it when Lennox Lewis was at his prime?



Which respective boxing era do you think featured the best heavyweight boxers? Why?

I think that the 70's featured the most talent, but I did not experience it first hand.
The mid 90's are under appreciated.
Bowe, Lewis, Holyfield, Moorer, Tyson, Mercer, Ruddock, Morrison, Witherspoon, Foreman, Hide, Bruno, McCall.
Even the underclass was fairly useful, you had capable guys outside the top 15-20, like Botha, Ferguson, Bonecrusher.

The 1970s was the best. Top 4 was the best, and there was a lot of depth.
The 1990s probably had the 2nd most talent, however there were not that many times where the best fighters took on each other.
The 1910-1919 decade may be the 2nd best. Johnson was great early in the decade, Dempsey was great at the end. Langford, Wills, McVey, and Jeannette had many fights between each other. You also had the "White Hopes" for more depth.

The 1930s and 1960s was pretty good. In fact the 1930s may be the most underrated. There was a lot of roughly even good fighters going against each other in the early 1930s and then Louis came along in the mid-1930s.

The early to mid 90's had a lot of great athleticism while the early to mid 70's had tremendous skill. Both were golden eras, but in the 70's we saw more of the best facing each other, while the 90's had greater depth in talent even in the lower ranks.

Its a tie between those two periods in my opinion.

In response to the fighter primes: (I'm hoping the thread won't go off on the tangent where I think it will go.)

Jeffries 1898-1904
Johnson 1903-1910
Dempsey 1918/1919-1923
Tunney 1920-1928
Louis 1935-1942
Marciano 1951-1955
Ali 1964-1967
Lewis 1992-2000

There are certainly some gray areas; fighter don't usually all of a sudden go from being a prospect to being at their best, and they usually don't go from being their prime to being washed up from one year to the next.

The 90s HW division is over-rated. Once you get beyond the upper tier (Lewis, Holyfield, Bowe, Tyson) the quality drops quickly. The 2nd tier guys (like Ruddock, Mercer, Morrison, and Tua) are remembered fondly and were exciting, colorful fighters but historically they were a weak crop.

The 80s and 1920-30s under-rated, especially the latter. Tons of depth in the Dempsey through Louis eras.

While I personally would go with the late 1960s to late 1970's I'm of the opinion that the heavyweight division always tended to be rather top heavy. Even in the 1970's, what a lot of people fondly recall as the "Golden Age" heavyweights, you still had guys like Randy Nuemann, Chuck Wepner, Johnny Boudreaux, Alfredo Evangelista etc. creeping into the bottom of the top ten from time to time.

You always find mediocre fighters who slip in the top 10 for a brief time. They are usually fighters who are on their way up and are not tested yet. They they fight someone decent and get exposed. Happens with every weight class throughout history.

The 1970s had a ton of depth. Besides Ali, Frazier, Foreman, and Norton at the top, there was Quarry, Lyle, Shavers, and Young. Even after them you had decent fighters like Bugner, Middleton, Kirkman etc. Patterson, Bonavena, and Ellis was still pretty good in the early 1970s, and Holmes came on in the late 1970s.
The early 1970s probably had as much depth as any weight division ever. It dropped off in the late 1970s, but was still good.

I'd consider the 90's deeper, it's very close overall.

The 90's suffers in comparison to the 70's for the fights that did not happen.

The only obvious unfulfilled match from the 70's is Frazier v Norton, who were both handled by Eddie Futch anyway.

The 90's, I agree with Saad, was deeper, but the list of fights that we should have seen is heartbreaking.

Edit : I'll take this opportunity to remind everyone that Terrible Tim was a hell of a dangerous man in the early to mid 90's and, to my recent surprise, actually showed up in good shape a few times until he realised that he wasn't going to get a look in.

witherspoon wrote:The 90's suffers in comparison to the 70's for the fights that did not happen.

The only obvious unfulfilled match from the 70's is Frazier v Norton, who were both handled by Eddie Futch anyway.

The 90's, I agree with Saad, was deeper, but the list of fights that we should have seen is heartbreaking.

Frazier/Young
Norton/Lyle
Foreman/Quarry

The top of the 70's is pretty untouchable, arguably 3 of the top 5 ever. The 90's still had arguably 3 of the top 10 and two of my top 5 in a diminished, but still capable, form. It's tit for tat.

Of course, there were fights that should have happened in the70's too, but Bowe v Lewis, Bowe v Tyson.........

And any number of less major fights that would have been great to see (Holyfield-Ruddock, Mercer-Bowe etc.)

witherspoon wrote:Of course, there were fights that should have happened in the70's too, but Bowe v Lewis, Bowe v Tyson.........

And any number of less major fights that would have been great to see (Holyfield-Ruddock, Mercer-Bowe etc.)

Funny you mention ; i was watching Dokes vs Ruddock last night and though that a match against Holyfield would have been something. Watching Ruddock in that fight it is hard to imagine anyone dealing with him but Tyson dealt with him quite easy in my opinion.

Evrenb

I didn't see anything easy about either of those fights. The low blows Tyson delivered in fight two were painful to watch.

SaadOffTheDeck wrote:I didn't see anything easy about either of those fights. The low blows Tyson delivered in fight two were painful to watch.

The second fight was tough I guess...but the first match was apart from one round..was all Tyson? What were the scorecards at the time of the stoppage??

evrenb wrote:

SaadOffTheDeck wrote:I didn't see anything easy about either of those fights. The low blows Tyson delivered in fight two were painful to watch.

The second fight was tough I guess...but the first match was apart from one round..was all Tyson? What were the scorecards at the time of the stoppage??

59 - 53 was the score...

evrenb wrote:

evrenb wrote:

SaadOffTheDeck wrote:I didn't see anything easy about either of those fights. The low blows Tyson delivered in fight two were painful to watch.

The second fight was tough I guess...but the first match was apart from one round..was all Tyson? What were the scorecards at the time of the stoppage??

59 - 53 was the score...

So? Duran/Palomino was 99-90. That doesn't make it easy. Mike took some sick bombs in both of those fights. This is the first time I've ever heard them described as easy, Tyson certainly would disagree with you.

Quite easy....passed his prime tyson...apart from oneround where ruddock opened up...will view in the next day or so..been 20 years!! Ruddock won one round, knocked down twice...considering ruddocks ability, prime, size and power tyson beat him quite easy...bruno was tougher first time around :-)

I think it's fair to say that Tyson dealt with Ruddock fairly easily considering that he 'was just a bully who would crumble at the first sign of resistance, was past his prime and did not have the benefit of Kevin Rooney in his corner'.

I will admit that I get a little suckered into this kind of argument, but in reality Ruddock could arguably claim to be Tyson's toughest victim and I don't think he would be a walk in the park for any heavyweight (more power to Lennox Lewis).

For what it's worth, I do believe that Tyson was a better fighter with Kevin Rooney, and his head movement and combination punching were non-existent in the first Ruddock fight. Lets not forget that Tyson took a huge beating from Douglas before falling, he knows now that his chin is solid, so why not sacrifice some defence and go all out for a one punch ko? It's not necessarily down to erosion of skills.
But Ruddock made it tough for him and he had to show heart (and chin).
I'd say the 2 fights are a credit to both guys.

Tyson took some very big shots in both Ruddock fights but overall both were very one-sided fights. Razor won what . . .4 rounds tops across both fights?