Where does the current SMW scene rank in the relatively brief history of the division

you really expanded on the title in the first post lol.

I think its an ok division, i mean as you say the history of the division is young, but i guess its pretty strong with the current cotingent

 

I like Ward, but that's about it.

In the days of Rocchigiani, Holmes, Leonard, Hearns, Park and Baek it was OK.

Then in the second half of '91 Nunn, Eubank, Watson and Benn all moved up, followed by Toney a year later, with others like Barkley, Holmes, Littles, Jones and Liles in there, and McClellan and Collins on their way. That was phenomenal for a few years.

Then Jones moved up to light-heavy and the WBC 168 belt changed hands 10 times in five years. Eubank/Calzaghe and Liles-Littles II were terrific fights, but the division seemed to die then for 10 years until the Calzaghe/Lacy fight.

Kessler the one-dimensional wouldn't have beaten any of the aforementioned, nor the unproven Bute, and neither the slug-slow Froch. Dirrell has some speed and talent it seems but he's unproven.

I like Ward though, he can fight equally well with his back skimming the ropes or his chest compressing his opponents chest. He can lead or counter, be fast and efficient, smother skilfully, evade awkwardly. He looks good.

 

:deal

Covered it pretty damned well,but could have been better by saying the current SMW scene is ****.Ward aside,there is a serious lack of guys with skills and heart around at the moment.

 

With the absence of Eubank and Benn mixing it with Jones and Toney I don't think it was phenomenal.

It was good, dont get me wrong, but it didnt give us all the fights we wanted.

 

And did Hearns, Hagler, Duran or Leonard fight McCallum or Graham?

Did Calzaghe fight Collins, Ottke, Froch and Bute?

 

THE biggest fights in both those scenarios happened.

RJJ-Eubank or Benn-Toney or some of the cross atlantic fights involving these would have made the era something above what it is.

That's undeniable.

 

sure i can remember some footage of steve collins confronting roy jones on his front lawn,does anyone else remember or have footage?

 

The biggest fight here was Toney-Jones IMO.

 

There have been 3 great smw era's imo.

One was from 93-96 when we had nunn, toney, jones, benn, eubank and liles. As talent laden as that division was, the best fights escaped us.

We've had two era's where the talent wasn't as good but that's compounded by the willingness of the best to take each other on.

2004-2007 saw joe, lacy and mikel rule the division before unification between every belt ended up occuring.

Today the top 4 are ward, mikel, carl and bute and aside from bute everyone else has fought each other.

At the moment I class today's era as the 3rd greatest. All we need is bute to fight a top class opponent and it overtakes joe's era.