I agree with most the 30's and 40's was the best, if you took the big 4 out of the 80's then it isn't very special.
Half those guys Seamus named were 80s guys who carried into the early 90s anyway.Who really considers McCallum a 90s fighter?. If you're taking decades as a whole the 90s would be rock bottom because the absolutely awful 2nd half of the decade puts it right into the ground for quality.
Murderers row ruled the 40's and that for me is the best era, comfortably. The 90's were superb with kalambay, graham, nunn, johnson, jackson, mccallum, mcclelland, jones, hopkins, holmes and joppy
half of those guys were notably faded fighters, bar maybe a fight or two in the 90s luf. Kalambay, Nunn, Graham. Jackson and McCallum all really 80s men. Holmes and Joppy....shite. Johnson, Mcllelan, Toney, Collins and Jones make the early 90s strong....though Eubank, Benn and Watson moved up too quickly really.Stuck between decades re impact. Then from about 95 the middleweight division entered imo it's weakest ever state, certainly for the more easily judged 20s and on, period. For a straight decade by decade ranking, not taking into account primes and such, gimme the 20s, 40s and 60s, though middle has been consistently strong until relatively recently.
Oh I know, I wanted to say from 85-95 but then realised it was a decade thing so I just decided to stick with the names and accept them being faded but included. I disagree. Both were consistently top 3 ranked for about 4 years each.
I wouldn't call a couple of those guys 2nd tier, but that era was so strong (as opposed to the 80's) that someone had be put down there. And yes, I forgot Nunn, who was KO'd by Toney early in the decade and cocaine later.
Kalambay was an elite level fighter who schooled an atg in Mccallum(and very nearly won the rematch) and had victories over Graham,Collins,Dewitt,Simms and Iran Barkley. He's a hof fighter on par with the very best middles of all time. The only blot on his record was that freak occurence against Nunn.