Another of my faves is the eighties. Not only did we have the brilliance of 'The 4 Kings' but a lot of good middleweights in Britain.
Speaking of the Turpin brothers, the night of Sept 12,1951, when Randy Turpin who upset Ray Robinson in London, fought Ray Robinson in a rematch at the old Polo Grounds in NY. I and a buddy of mine had great seats for that bout sitting about 10 rows behind Gen.Douglas MacArthur ...What a fight we saw in which the awkward but STRONG Randy Turpin cut Robinson's eye badly in a late round...Robby was bleeding so bad that the referee looked at the eye,and was close to stopping the bout in the 9th round. In the 10th round the incomparable Robinson in a do or die effort went all out and stopped Turpin in the 10th round...The audience went wild with the tko...I believe Randy Turpin went downhill after that fight...As for me this bout, along with the FOTC 1971,and the wild night in 1945 when the East Side "hoodlum" Rocky Graziano,an1-8 underdog flattened a sensational prospect Billy Arnold in the 3rd round, and became the biggest drawing card in boxing...Those 3 boxing events will always stick in my mind...
80's. But to be more specific, 80 to around 85 was unreal. High volume and high caliber of fights and fighters on free tv.
Probably the 60's, mainly from lightweight down, perhaps going into the 70's. Stupid deep, even if you don't count the multitude of world class contenders who never got much of a look in. Golden ages all for fly, bantam, feather, lightweight and middle. Perez, Kingpetch, Harada, Ebihara, Burruni, McGowan, Torres, Accavallo, Chionoi, Jofre, Medel the Great and Holy, Caldwell, Rudkin, Rose, Chucho, Olivares, Moore, Ramos, Seki, Saldivar, Winstone, Fammo, Legra, Elorde, Laguna, Ortiz, Loi, Locche, Perkins, Lane, Brown, Dupas, Napoles, Tiger, Carter, Giardello, Archer, Griffith, LMR, Mims, Benton, Benvenuti etc. And that was only on the surface. Welter was deep too and the heavy scene wasn't bad either. The little guys were where it was at though, and the bantams are probably my favourite, half a notch ahead of all the other divisions below light welter. Bantam and fly held their water brilliantly going into the 70's, with the heavies and light heavies coming into their own great generations, but most of the other divisions tailed off slightly in terms of depth and have continued to do so at a slowburning rate imo despite the era of the 4 - and many other greats - falling within the extended timespan.
For me, it honestly depends on what day of the week it is. I vacillate between eras like crazy. Sometimes it's all about those crazy Irishmen who were boxing, drinking, bar-brawling and palling around with each other in Boston and the surrounding areas during the 1800s like John L. Sullivan, Nonpareil Jack Dempsey, Jack McAuliffe, Ike Weir and Jake Kilrain. Other times it's those dangerous black fighters of the 40s and the white fighters who were intrepid enough (and good enough) to cross swords with them. Then there were those amazing middleweights of the 1910s and 1930s who somehow got lost in the shuffle due to vacated titles (thanks Ketch and Mick); guys who could have been champs in other eras, instead of just claimants, titlists and contenders (Gibbons, Houck, Jeff Smith, Clabby, McGoorty, Yarosz, Apostoli, Krieger, Overlin, Hostak, Brouillard, Steele.....and the colored girls go doot-de-doot, de-doot, de-doot, doot-de-doot....).
I'd say the 60' 70's and 80's. I don't remember the 60's but I got interested mid 70's I suppose, I was about 10. I started reading Boxing news, BI and Ring which me dad had on subscription. I got hooked and then I started finding 60's mags and boxing books all over the house, in the loft, in the garage everywhere. It was great, every time i found a stash it was like a new treasure trove. I suppose that's why they're my favourite years.
60s bantamweight, well 60s fly to feather. Post-Foster to Spinks leaving LHW, though Qawi beating Saad arguably finished the era I'm really in love with. What I dubbed The Ferocious Four Chacon, Limon, Boza, Navarette, and their fights with Arguello too. And all of their fights, so Navarette-Chung, Boza-Everyone, Chacon's fight with Little Red was yonks before, doesn't qualify though. Just from late 70s - early-mid eighties. That's probably my favourite specific era/division. A huge amount of fun those fights, surprising and dramatic even though I watched every single one on a laptop and knowing the result already. You could run out of superlatives for super feather (and lightweight for some of Boza's best, and Chacon-Mancini) and I guess you could include Camacho's slaying of a faded Bazooka, which is beautiful to watch.
Beautiful, got there before me. Yeah, if you include middle/welter, ****, I'll say flat out 60s is my favourite era including all weights Wow. Exactly. You've pretty nailed all my boys right there.EDIT: This sounds awful Exactly, but I think, funnily enough Kingpetch onwards was the greatest era for fly (EDIT: no need for this breaking up the flow, sorry, but here it it nonetheless:you'd assume the Newsboy Brown, Wolgast, Montana, Genaro battle for power with no consensus champ 'til Lynch period was incredible, we know it's frighteningly deep and competitive but NOT ONE SCRAP OF FOOTAGE NOT ****ING ONE) up until Ohba died and Bus Station couldn't make weight. Great after that too but those years were incredibly competitive, in turns beautiful and brutal, and filled with arguably the most diverse bunch of stylists in the most international field the sport has ever seen. Well it's up there. But yeah, bantam for me too :good
I'm forever green at ou for not only living through it but experiencing it and soaking it up as I know ya' did. Some great decades. I look forward to people making the case for even older era's, I can see feeling a close affinity with some of those crazy times too. No one in for the 40s golden age?
It's worth reading those mags from the 60's and 70's, they always had stories from the old days about fights and fighters. Probably stuff you wouldn't even find on the internet.