you know the funny thing is my grandfather was born in 1897, so he would have been 22 in 1919. He always told me Jack Johnson would have knocked out any of the fighters in the 1980s. I suppose we all think our generation of fighters is better than all the others.
To some extent that is certainly true. Rightly or wrongly, it was claimed in days gone by that as the challenger you had to clearly beat the champion to rest his title from him, and if it were close the champion should get any benefit of the doubt that might exist. I think the same principle - again rightly or wrongly - probably applies when we are comparing fighters of our own generation to those that follow.