Best heavyweight eras

Nah, not as a whole. The late 70s and early 90s were pretty bad.

As for best eras, it depends on what one wants to define as an era or how one guages the quality of said era.

Most of the more modern eras (say 1940s-present) seem to follow a similar indistinguishable pattern of maybe (1-4) stand out fighters active at a time, bar the late 60s/early 70s which get a boost from one Muhammad Ali and the names associated with him. Overall, the division may have peaked in depth at least in the 20s-30s.

 

When we talk about an "era" I don't think it necessarily has to refer to an entire 10 year duration of a decade. The 1970's had its weak pockets of time, but I think when most people refer to the 70's as being the "golden era" of boxing, they're generally referencing the time frame between about 1970-1975. I believe a similar duration to hold true for the 1990's and several other eras as well. An era is probably a period lasting no more than about 4-6 years, as fighter's primes are so short and the climate of the sport is constantly changing..The harder question to ask would be which era was the "weakest?" A lot of modern critics give today the nod, but I'm not sure that I agree.

 

I agree about the late 70's, but the early 90's were pretty solid in my opinion.. Certainly better than the late 90's. Tyson was still prime or close to it from 1990-1991. Holyfield was peak and so were Moorer and Ruddock. You had a fresh crop of excellent prospects who were coming into their own and starting to breach the top 10-15, ie, Lewis, Bowe, Mercer, Morrison, etc.. And you had a lot of aged named veterans who were still competitive and winning actively like Tucker, Foreman, Bruno, Witherspoon and Holmes. Even some of the journeyman and trial horses weren't that bad. The only valid criticism that I can see, is that we needed to see more match ups between the best, but some of the second tier heavyweights were engaging in some pretty tough scraps and the talent was definitely there.

 

I agree. I also agree with Mongoose about the 20's and 30's era being loaded as well. 20's/30's, early-mid 70's and early 90's takes it for me.

 

1987-93

 

I was thinking 92-96, maybe mid 90s more accurate?

Holyfield and Bowe gave us some classics but...

Tyson went to prison.

Mercer, Damiani, and Morrison bombed as title challenger prospects and Old Holmes, Cooper, Old Foreman, Old Dokes, and Ferguson ended up getting their title shots instead.

Bowe gets fat and breaks up the belts. Lewis fights a washed up Tucker for an alpha title.

Holyfield has a horrible 94-95, briefly retires, and is written off as being washed up.

Lewis and Moorer are upset by one punch KOs when they could have filled the void.

Foreman runs off with the lineal title and is stripped. Seldon and McCall end up as the World Champions.

 

I've made those exact same observations and criticisms in the past. But I think from about 1989 to 1993, the division was still pretty solid.

 

Definitely the seventies. Especially 1971-75. The nineties were pretty good too. As for number three - The sixties,I think.

 

93 is certainly a major drop off when things start crumbling and we all realized it isn't going to be as good as we thought it was going to be.

I like hte late 90s because Tyson got to do a mini-clean up of the belt holders and the matches that needed to be made finally happend: Holyfield/Tyson, Holyfield/Moorer II unification, and Holyfield/Lewis unification.

 

The match up of names certainly happened towards the end, but unfortunately not when some of those guys were at their best. Incidentally I enjoyed 1989 to 1993 for some of its higher profile bouts as well as lower ones, Holyfield vs Dokes, Tyson vs Ruddock, Mercer vs Cooper, Moorer vs Cooper, Holyfield vs Cooper, Mercer vs Morrison, Lewis vs Mason, Holyfield vs Bowe, the list goes on and on.. Sir Bert Cooper certainly helped to make the early 90's.

 

The 2000's were pretty damn good.

 

I enjoyed the heavyweight division from the 60's onward but there were times from the roaring 20's to the Joe Louis era to Marciano to Ali to Tyson til Today that I have seen some exciting fights that I enjoyed. I wish Vitali did not lose 4 years with the back injury because he came back not far from what he left and could have squeezed another 12 fights in 4 years. I have to be honest I love the old school fights and saw Ali fight live and most of the Heavyweights of the 70's,I saw Holmes fight many times and enjoyed Evander and Lewis but IMO there were highs and lows in every era and I enjoy the Klitschko's, people say the 70's but there was a few key fights and a lot of nonsense just like every other era.....every era offers something, I like well matched competitive fights Ali-Frazier FOTC was great but so was Marciano-Charles 1, Louis-Baer Louis-Walcott 1&2, Louis-Schmeling 2, Evander-Tyson 1...Vitali showed great improvement after the Lewis fight, my favorite fight was when he KO'd Kirk Johnson
Vitali was a well conditioned Big man

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hbr6bXgTm0Q

I would have loved to see the Lewis rematch, Vitali wanted it and was confident of Victory

 

I really liked the late 80's and early 90's. When great fighters like Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, an Old George Foreman and Larry Holmes, Lennox Lewis and Michael Moorer were all in the picture. With other good exciting fighters like Ray Mercer, Razor Ruddock, Tommy Morrison, Tony Tucker, Orlin Norris, Michael Dokes, Bert Cooper, Frank Bruno, etc.