BoxRec

Taking the 8 main weight classes, what would you say was the golden age for each weight class?
You can take approximately a decade, give or take a few years.

For instance, most will probably opt for the 70's for the heavywieghts (probably late 60's/early to mid 70s), the era of Ali, Foreman, Frazier, Norton, Ellis, Quarry, Shavers, Lyle and Young, the outgoing Patterson and Liston touched on the beginning of this era, with the great Larry Holmes bookending the other extreme, Add in a bit of Chuvalo, Bonavena, Cooper, Bugner, Terrell, Cooney, Coetzee, Spinks, Weaver and Bobick and you have a ten year period as rich in talent as any era at any weight in the sports history

Surely the light heavyweight class of the 40's, with Moore, Charles, Bivins, Johnson, Marshall, Maxim, Lesnevich, Mills stands out as the best of the 175lb class

When was the golden age of the middleweights, welter, light, feather, bantam and fly?
And feel free to challenge my assumptions about the bigger guys above

I'm with ya on Heavyweight and Light Heavyweight.

The best era of Middleweights would probably be between 1945 and 55 with Tony Zale, Rocky Graziano, Jake Lamotta, Marcel Cerdan, Sugar Ray Robinson and a lot of others in that time, but it's certainly debatable. I'll have to think harder about the best eras for the other weight classes.

gilgamesh wrote:I'm with ya on Heavyweight and Light Heavyweight.

The best era of Middleweights would probably be between 1945 and 55 with Tony Zale, Rocky Graziano, Jake Lamotta, Marcel Cerdan, Sugar Ray Robinson and a lot of others in that time, but it's certainly debatable. I'll have to think harder about the best eras for the other weight classes.

I was struggling between the above era (and you can add the murderers row fighters to that list too)

or around the late 80s/eraly 90s where you had the outgoing fabulous 4 at middleweight in the mid/late 80s through Mccallum, Nunn, Kalambay, Barkley, Julian Jackson, Reggie Johnson, Gerald McClelan British fighters like Graham, Benn, Eubank, Collins, Watson, then the likes of RJJ, Toney and Hopkins towards the end of that era

davie wrote:

gilgamesh wrote:I'm with ya on Heavyweight and Light Heavyweight.

The best era of Middleweights would probably be between 1945 and 55 with Tony Zale, Rocky Graziano, Jake Lamotta, Marcel Cerdan, Sugar Ray Robinson and a lot of others in that time, but it's certainly debatable. I'll have to think harder about the best eras for the other weight classes.

I was struggling between the above era (and you can add the murderers row fighters to that list too)

or around the late 80s/eraly 90s where you had the outgoing fabulous 4 at middleweight in the mid/late 80s through Mccallum, Nunn, Kalambay, Barkley, Julian Jackson, Reggie Johnson, Gerald McClelan British fighters like Graham, Benn, Eubank, Collins, Watson, then the likes of RJJ, Toney and Hopkins towards the end of that era

That's definitely a great era of Middleweights as well.

30's for Lightweights?
Canzoneri, Ross, Ambers, Armstrong, Angott, Montgomery, Arizmendi

davie wrote:or around the late 80s/eraly 90s where you had the outgoing fabulous 4 at middleweight in the mid/late 80s through Mccallum, Nunn, Kalambay, Barkley, Julian Jackson, Reggie Johnson, Gerald McClelan British fighters like Graham, Benn, Eubank, Collins, Watson, then the likes of RJJ, Toney and Hopkins towards the end of that era

Yeah, I would have said 1984/85 to 1994/95.

The 20's for light heavyweights was insane.i could be off on a few but Tunney, greb, loughran, gibbons, knight, Lewis, siki, mctigue, berlenbach, etc...

davie wrote:30's for Lightweights?
Canzoneri, Ross, Ambers, Armstrong, Angott, Montgomery, Arizmendi

SaadOffTheDeck wrote:The 20's for light heavyweights was insane.i could be off on a few but Tunney, greb, loughran, gibbons, knight, Lewis, siki, mctigue, berlenbach, etc...

That's a fair old challenge to my 40's bunch.
Fancy their chances againdt Moore, Charles and Bivins et al?

davie wrote:

SaadOffTheDeck wrote:The 20's for light heavyweights was insane.i could be off on a few but Tunney, greb, loughran, gibbons, knight, Lewis, siki, mctigue, berlenbach, etc...

That's a fair old challenge to my 40's bunch.
Fancy their chances againdt Moore, Charles and Bivins et al?

I don't know which was greater, have to investigate. I suspect the earlier era had more depth.

An era of lightweights I always thought was thick with talent was the lightweights of '60 - '65. We are talking Carlos Ortiz, joe Brown, Ismael laguna, Kenny Lane, Doug Vaillant, Paul Armstead, Carlos Hernandez, Flash Elorde, Alfredo Urbina, Len Matthews, Paolo Rosi, Dave Charnley, Bunny Grant, Sugar Ramos and Nicolino Loche. Man, I could probably name a half dozen more from this era as well if I think hard enough. What's more, they were all fighting one another to get to that top spot. What a fun era that had to be at 135.

davie wrote:

gilgamesh wrote:I'm with ya on Heavyweight and Light Heavyweight.

The best era of Middleweights would probably be between 1945 and 55 with Tony Zale, Rocky Graziano, Jake Lamotta, Marcel Cerdan, Sugar Ray Robinson and a lot of others in that time, but it's certainly debatable. I'll have to think harder about the best eras for the other weight classes.

I was struggling between the above era (and you can add the murderers row fighters to that list too)

or around the late 80s/eraly 90s where you had the outgoing fabulous 4 at middleweight in the mid/late 80s through Mccallum, Nunn, Kalambay, Barkley, Julian Jackson, Reggie Johnson, Gerald McClelan British fighters like Graham, Benn, Eubank, Collins, Watson, then the likes of RJJ, Toney and Hopkins towards the end of that era

Talk about depth to a division.

scartissue wrote:An era of lightweights I always thought was thick with talent was the lightweights of '60 - '65. We are talking Carlos Ortiz, joe Brown, Ismael laguna, Kenny Lane, Doug Vaillant, Paul Armstead, Carlos Hernandez, Flash Elorde, Alfredo Urbina, Len Matthews, Paolo Rosi, Dave Charnley, Bunny Grant, Sugar Ramos and Nicolino Loche. Man, I could probably name a half dozen more from this era as well if I think hard enough. What's more, they were all fighting one another to get to that top spot. What a fun era that had to be at 135.

I looked at this era after I'd suggested the 30s and had a good rethink, extend your range to the full 60's and you can have Ken Buchanan and few others on your list too

I think my list of Canzoneri, Ross, Ambers, Armstrong, Angott, Montgomery, Arizmendi from the 30's is a stronger top level but the 60's perhaps had greater depth.

I'm sure we could have a good debate splitting those to eras

With the Welterweight division I think you'd have to go with the era 1978 through 1987 or 1988...you have several of the all time greats at Welterweight and other very good fighters as well.

Ray Leonard, Thomas Hearns, Roberto Duran, Wilfred Benitez, Pipino Cuevas, Donald Curry, Simon Brown, Marlon Starling, Lloyd Honeyghan, Milton McCrory, Mark Breland

I'm sure it can be challenged, but nevertheless that was a pretty deep 10 year era for the Welterweights.

Featherweight is a toughie

My first thought was any era that had Pep and Saddler had to win

then I thought of late 70s early 80, with Pedroza, Sanchez, Gomez, Lockridge and Nelson and I looked at that gap from 75 (With the likes of Arguello, Jofre and Olivarez in the division) through the names above and on to 85, when Mcguigan came in

And I can't help ignore either era for my personal favourite at the start of this century, When greats like Nazeem, Bareera, Moralez, Marquez, Pacquiao and Tapia graced the division, When you look at the depth of fighter from around that time, particularly 2000-2005 take some beating

Few good contenders for best featherweight era

gilgamesh wrote:With the Welterweight division I think you'd have to go with the era 1978 through 1987 or 1988...you have several of the all time greats at Welterweight and other very good fighters as well.

Ray Leonard, Thomas Hearns, Roberto Duran, Wilfred Benitez, Pipino Cuevas, Donald Curry, Simon Brown, Marlon Starling, Lloyd Honeyghan, Milton McCrory, Mark Breland

I'm sure it can be challenged, but nevertheless that was a pretty deep 10 year era for the Welterweights.

I didn't even look at Welter as I thought it would be a very hard call to make, but you will struggle to beat that list of names.
I was looking around about the reign of SRR, with Gavilan and Armstrong and some of the lightweights from the 30's list moving up. But I don't think it challenges the depth of that list above

I wouldn't disagree with any of the above points, but I'd also put a shout out for the Light Heavyweights from 70-85. Tiger, Foster, Galindez, Johnson, Eddie Mustafa Muhammed, Matt Saad Muhammed, Conteh & Spinks. Throw into the mix the likes of Yaqui Lopez, Rossman, Kates, Cuello, & Parlov, it was a deep division. Some of the fights featuring the above are in my all time list, so competitive.

Check the bantamweight era of the late 60s to the mid-70s: Fighting Harada, Jesus Pimentel, Jose Medel, Ruben Olivares, Lionel Rose, Chucho Castillo, Rafael Herrera, Alan Rudkin, Romeo Anaya, Enrique Pinder, Rodolfo Martinez, Octavio "Famoso" Gomez, Carlos Zarate, Alfonso Zamora, Alberto Davila and Lupe Pintor.

I imagine how fight fans in the Inglewood Forum and Arena Coliseo of Mexico City must felt. Most of the fighters that dominated that weight class in that era were Mexicans. I didn't include The Golden Bantam, Eder Jofre of Brazil. By that time, Jofre retired for 3 years and came back and move to featherweight. So much talent, just like the heavyweights. We are sleeping with this division folks. We really are.

With the Flyweights you'd be hard pressed to do better than the era between 1955 and 1964

Which contained the reigns of Pascual Perez and Pone Kingpetch two of the all time greats at Flyweight, Fighting Harada also competed at these weight classes during this era. There was also Ramon Arias, Hiroyuki Ebihara, Salvatore Burrini and other solid names during this time period as well.

I'm not as familiar with Flyweight as other weight classes, but this seems like a solid 10 year run for the weight class. I'll have a look at some of the other eras later.

Note: 1973-1982 would probably be the next best era for the Flyweight division. I think it falls just short of the above mentioned era.

For me, the golden lightweight era was of Ike Williams, Beau Jack, Bob Montgomery, Sammy Angott, Willie Joyce, Enrique Bolanos, Lee Jenkins, Wesley Ramey, Jimmy Carter, Paddy DeMarco, Lauro Zalas and Juan Zurita. There are other contenders of that era that I forgot their names, but these men were the most famous and memorable.

gilgamesh wrote:With the Flyweights you'd be hard pressed to do better than the era between 1955 and 1964

Which contained the reigns of Pascual Perez and Pone Kingpetch two of the all time greats at Flyweight, Fighting Harada also competed at these weight classes during this era. There was also Ramon Arias, Hiroyuki Ebihara, Salvatore Burrini and other solid names during this time period as well.

I'm not as familiar with Flyweight as other weight classes, but this seems like a solid 10 year run for the weight class. I'll have a look at some of the other eras later.

Note: 1973-1982 would probably be the next best era for the Flyweight division. I think it falls just short of the above mentioned era.

Flyweight is fairly easy IMO. Gotta be the 20's, villa, Genaro, labarba, Panama & newsboy brown, mcclarnin, wolgast. Etc..

Obviously, for each category can be found more the best era , but for HW is certainly the only one.

gilgamesh wrote:With the Welterweight division I think you'd have to go with the era 1978 through 1987 or 1988...you have several of the all time greats at Welterweight and other very good fighters as well.

Ray Leonard, Thomas Hearns, Roberto Duran, Wilfred Benitez, Pipino Cuevas, Donald Curry, Simon Brown, Marlon Starling, Lloyd Honeyghan, Milton McCrory, Mark Breland

I'm sure it can be challenged, but nevertheless that was a pretty deep 10 year era for the Welterweights.

Amen.

It's hard to top that list of names.

davie wrote: the era of Ali, Foreman, Frazier, Norton, Ellis, Quarry, Shavers, Lyle and Young, the outgoing Patterson and Liston touched on the beginning of this era, with the great Larry Holmes bookending the other extreme, Add in a bit of Chuvalo, Bonavena, Cooper, Bugner, Terrell, Cooney, Coetzee, Spinks, Weaver and Bobick and you have a ten year period as rich in talent as any era at any weight in the sports history

Surely the light heavyweight class of the 40's, with Moore, Charles, Bivins, Johnson, Marshall, Maxim, Lesnevich, Mills stands out as the best of the 175lb class

The 1940's had some good Light Heavyweights... And I also like the groups in the 20's, 30's, 80's and today.

The 1970's weren't as bad as the 1950's for Heavyweights... But the only problem I have with that era is Ali got his jaw shattered by a China-Chinned blooping swinger with a cross-armed defense... Ali got decked hard by 185-pound left hooking Henry Cooper and by fat little left hooker Frazier who was 5'11" and performed like a basketball versus the big, tall, and strong 6'3" X 217 George Foreman... Ali also got whipped by novice Leon Spinks, 6-0-1... Then you have little Jimmy Ellis who fought most of his career fights as a MIddleweight... Bonavena, Chuvalo, Bugner, and Terrell were 4 of the most ungainly Heavyweights in the history of the division.. Fans would actually laugh at Bonavena's antics as he plodded around the ring like a baby elephant... I concede that Larry Holmes WAS a great Heavyweight, no matter that he had no one very good to fight in the 70's...or they all ducked him... Holmes didn't get hit with left hooks coming out of center field.

Most of the top 1970's Heavyweights ducked the great Holmes... Ali even fought the unranked Leon Spinks instead of Holmes...but years later Ali was low on funds, so he fought Holmes strictly for the money... It wasn't because anyone (including Ali) thought he had a chance in Hell of beating Holmes.

I thought Jimmy Ellis was an interesting boxer.. Ellis was talented but a natural Middleweight.. He had no trouble out-boxing the clumsy but much bigger Bonavena - and easily out-boxed slowpoker Chuvalo as well... But Ellis would have monster problems with Anthony Joshua, Luis Oritz, David Haye, Alexander Povetkin, or Deontay Wilder... He'd get crushed in short order by that group of big Heavyweights.. Today's Heavyweights far out-weigh that motley crew of swingers.. There was no real competition for Americans in the 1970's... I'm not sure why you mention Duane Bobick. He was the most uncoordinated, hittable, and inept boxer I've ever seen who achieved a # 4 world ranking.. He couldn't duck a punch. The crude swinging slugger, Kallie Knoetze, flattened Bobick in short order.

Kalan wrote:

davie wrote: the era of Ali, Foreman, Frazier, Norton, Ellis, Quarry, Shavers, Lyle and Young, the outgoing Patterson and Liston touched on the beginning of this era, with the great Larry Holmes bookending the other extreme, Add in a bit of Chuvalo, Bonavena, Cooper, Bugner, Terrell, Cooney, Coetzee, Spinks, Weaver and Bobick and you have a ten year period as rich in talent as any era at any weight in the sports history

Surely the light heavyweight class of the 40's, with Moore, Charles, Bivins, Johnson, Marshall, Maxim, Lesnevich, Mills stands out as the best of the 175lb class

The 1940's had some good Light Heavyweights... And I also like the groups in the 20's, 30's, 80's and today.

The 1970's weren't as bad as the 1950's for Heavyweights... But the only problem I have with that era is Ali got his jaw shattered by a China-Chinned blooping swinger with a cross-armed defense... Ali got decked hard by 185-pound left hooking Henry Cooper and by fat little left hooker Frazier who was 5'11" and performed like a basketball versus the big, tall, and strong 6'3" X 217 George Foreman... Ali also got whipped by novice Leon Spinks, 6-0-1... Then you have little Jimmy Ellis who fought most of his career fights as a MIddleweight... Bonavena, Chuvalo, Bugner, and Terrell were 4 of the most ungainly Heavyweights in the history of the division.. Fans would actually laugh at Bonavena's antics as he plodded around the ring like a baby elephant... I concede that Larry Holmes WAS a great Heavyweight, no matter that he had no one very good to fight in the 70's...or they all ducked him... Holmes didn't get hit with left hooks coming out of center field.

Most of the top 1970's Heavyweights ducked the great Holmes... Ali even fought the unranked Leon Spinks instead of Holmes...but years later Ali was low on funds, so he fought Holmes strictly for the money... It wasn't because anyone (including Ali) thought he had a chance in Hell of beating Holmes.

I thought Jimmy Ellis was an interesting boxer.. Ellis was talented but a natural Middleweight.. He had no trouble out-boxing the clumsy but much bigger Bonavena - and easily out-boxed slowpoker Chuvalo as well... But Ellis would have monster problems with Anthony Joshua, Luis Oritz, David Haye, Alexander Povetkin, or Deontay Wilder... He'd get crushed in short order by that group of big Heavyweights.. Today's Heavyweights far out-weigh that motley crew of swingers.. There was no real competition for Americans in the 1970's... I'm not sure why you mention Duane Bobick. He was the most uncoordinated, hittable, and inept boxer I've ever seen who achieved a # 4 world ranking.. He couldn't duck a punch. The crude swinging slugger, Kallie Knoetze, flattened Bobick in short order.

When would you say was the greatest era of heavyweight boxing then, if not the 70's?

PS, I wasn't saying Ellis, Bonavena, Chuvalo, Bugner, Bobick and Terrell were world beaters by any stretch, but as far as adding depth to a division, they were fairly solid for guys featuring at the outskirts of a top 10. Certainly better than a Duhaupas or Malik Scott you'd surely agree