1924 Gene Tunney, Young Stribling, Kid Norfolk, Tommy Loughran, Paul Berlenbach. 1938 Tiger Jack Fox, Billy Conn, Jock McAvoy, Gus Lesnevich, Melio Bettina. 1943 Ezzard Charles, Gus Lesnevich, Jimmy Bivins, Anton Christoforidis, Lloyd Marshall. 1948 Ezzard Charles, Archie Moore, Gus Lesnevich, Lloyd Marshall. 1954 Archie Moore, Harold Johnson, Joey Maxim, Floyd Patterson. 1982 Matthew Saad Muhammad, Michael Spinks, Eddie Mustafa Muhammad, Dwight Braxton. 1997 Roy Jones Jr., Virgil Hill, Mike McCallum, James Toney. 2007 Bernard Hopkins, Antonio Tarver, Tomasz Adamek, Roy Jones Jr.
Mid to late 70's, up to the early 80's with Galindez, Conteh, Lopez, Saad, Mustafa, Johnson, Rossman, Qawi and Spinks.
Yes 1974-1984, the deepest pool of talent in my life time. Conteh Franklin Gregory Galindez Hutchins Deleon Burnett Kates Lopez Ahumada Parlov Rossman Braxton Spinks Johnson
One of the things I liked about the division back in the day was the depth of talent, and the fighters were usually in shape and hit hard. The division for me was a fine alternative to the years where the heavyweight division had problems with talent, scheduling/ politics, or outside the ring issues. I think the division could be the best in boxing in 2 years. Kovalev is crushing people. Stevenson is rather good, and Hopkins remains an ageless wonder. There are matches for Kolvalev to define a legacy, and no less than three grade A young gun prospects for him to fight later on in Beterbiev, Gvozdyk, and Mekhontsev Beterbiev is off to a tremendous start. Mekhonstev has outstanding skills and smarts. Gvozdyk is very well rounded.
late 80's to early 90's weren't really that bad, but the problem is that the bigger fights which needed to happen never came off. During that time you had: - Virgil Hill - Prince Charles - Jeff Harding - Michael Moorer - Bobby Czyz - Dennis Andries - Don Lalonde And several decent young prospect including Anthony Hembrick, Andrew Maynard and Booker T word. Unfortunately though, the big fights were never made. There was no unfication. And all the good talent either moved on or went stale after a fashion
mid-90's was pretty awesome… Jones, Jr Hill Toney Maske Dariusz Michalczewski Rocchigiani Griffin That's pretty deep of highly competitive fighters.
I must say that I like Kovalev...I think his upcoming bouts with Adonis and Beterbiev are going to go his way...he's uncommonly balanced in skill and power..right now he's my favorite active fighter.