Right! Great point.:good And not only that, but many of the past top heavyweights actually had moved up from light-heavy. Plus, comparing a "snap shot" of today's top ten with an entire era (the 70s) in unfair. Also, many fans and boxing writers "slip" in names like Sonny Liston as greats from the 70's who was actually dead before the 70s.
in the 80s there was also weatherspoon thomas spinks douglas smith tillman lyle tate quarry young foreman (stated his second run in the late 80s) Tyson turned pro in 85 LL, moore, and Bowe in 88 and/or 89 Bruno started in the early 80s holyfield started to fight @heavy in the late 80s Plus do not forget ali and frazier did not hang up their gloevs until the early 80s every era until today you had greats leaving and stars starting to climb the ladder. even in LL era you atleast had the Kbros coming up the ranks . . . then it was total **** with bird/ruiz etc and then today which is only marginally better because of the bros on top. Holyfiled is the only hold out and he should have retired before LL. lol and as for today, you cannot change the modern definition to make you case stronger . . . you post is implying that the current crop of heavies are not strong enough to stand on their own! shoud i start adding the top 10 cruisers from the 80s like deleon or qawi?
that list of 1980 heavyweights is the ring magazine top 10. and no you shouldnt add the cruiserweights because in 1980 the cruiserweight weight limit was different, it was 190. i add cunningham to the list because if he boxed in 1980 he wouldnt be a cruiserweight he would be a heavy. Cunningham is actually about the same size as a prime Ali, he is actually bigger than ali when ali began his pro career. I'm not sure why you have listed a load of boxers who boxed in the late 80s, they werent in the top 10 in 1980! If we are comparing the 2011 heavyweights to another time we should compare it to a particular year not to an entire decade like you have. If you compare an individual year to an entire decade the individual year is almost always going to come off worse.
D'uh who doesn't know the change the weight limits. my point is if they wanted to fight at heavy they would fight at heavy. NONE of the cruisers today would be close to the past heavies or even past cruisers. Once again if you want to add names add the top cruisers from the past as well because they might move up in weight. your theory sucks! my point was that many greats were winding down in the 80s, were contenders in the 80s and were just coming into the sport in the 80s. this is not happening today in fact you are lucky if you can pull together a top ten without adding cruiserweights . . . no matter how you slice it this era sucks balls
The current heavyweights are better than people give them credit for. I added top cruiserweights to the list because todays cruiserweights are bigger than cruiserweights of the past. I was making the point that todays heavyweights are split between cruiser and heavy, and people compare the boxers from a whole era or decade to the boxers in one particular year. Look at that list of 1980 boxers, that is not a list of the best from the 80s, it is a list of the top ten 190lb+ in the year 1980. The 2011 list is a list of the best 190lb boxers today. Which list do you think looks stronger? The list for 1970 is a list of the best 175lb+ boxers in the year 1970 so we can compare that to a list of the best 175lb boxers of today.
#1 Eddie Chambers 36-0-0 (Peter, Dimitrenko, Brock, Rossy, Guinn) #2 Toney Thompson 36-1-0 (Chazz Witherspoon, Luan Krasniqi, Timur, Guinn, Bean) #3 David Haye 26-1-0 ( Valuev, Ruiz, Mormeck, Barrett, Enzo ) #4 Chris Arreola 33-0-0 ( Chazz Witherspoon, McCline, Nagy Aguilera, Ahunanya ) #5 Johnathon Banks 26-0-0 ( **** knows ) #6 Jean M Mormeck 36-4-0 ( Timur, O'Neil Bell, Virgil Hill x2, #7 Marurice Harris 25-11-2 ( nothing fighter, I don't think anybody seriosly rates this clown just cause boxrec have him high. ) #8 Cedric Boswell 35-1-0 ( Nothing fighter, again other than Boxrec nobody rates this clown. ) #9 David Tua 53-3-0 (Rahman, Maskaev, Ruiz, Oquendo, Moorer) #10 Tyson Fury 15-0-0. (Chisora, McDermott twice, the guy is 22 pointless considering him in this. I don't really see what the point of this exercise was to be honest, this list seems to be going by the boxrec rankings which are hardly accurate. Never the less there is a few solid records there considering these guys apart from 3 fighters are not top 10 fighters. This era has plenty of depth, in fact I would go as far as saying this era right now as in today has the strongest top 50 ever. This list of fighters I'm about to name would prove a tough foe for anyone. Wlad Vitali Adamek Povetkin Chambers Helenius Valuev Thompson Solis Boystov Arreola Pulev Chagaev Lyakovic Juan Carlos Gomez Peter Dimitrenko Fury Price Ortiz Perez Ustinov Let's be totally honest here, the worst name from that list Dimitrenko would likely run riot and dominate a truely **** era, a **** era like Jack Johnsons.
Do you not follow boxing? Chambers despite being under 30 already has scalps over Peter, Dimitrenko and Brock. Not bad for a still active fighter, especially when you consider he is about to scalp Thompson.
Why is what I said wrong, the opening poster asked what has happened to the heavyweight division, and I explained that now the heavyweight division is split up by the increase in the cruiserweight limit. My post shows there is still just as much talent as there was in 1970 and 1980, but now some of that talent is in cruiserweight where as before 1990 it would have all been in heavyweight. as the question asked was what has happened to all the great american fighters, why was america able to produce these great fighters in the 70s but not now, I used cunningham as an example to show that there are still great fighters like in the 70s as he is the same size as the heavyweights in the 70s. You didnt answer the question about which of those lists looks to be strongest. Because I think it is the 2011 list. (although i would expect foreman and ali to beat the klitschkos)