Anyone On Here That Thinks The 70 s, Golden Era, Is Overrated?

I think that fight was Ken's last great performance,and after that it was all definitely downhill for him. That fight with Holmes definitely is up there with Ali-Frazier 1,2 & 3 and Ali-Foreman.

 

Who are those top fighters in their prime fighting each other in the 70s ?
Apart from Frazier vs Ali in 71, you don't have anybody else.

 

Overrated give me the 40 s heavyweights

 

Joe Frazier's retirement was anything but premature. He had nothing left.

 

If anyone ruled the heavyweights in the 70s it was Muhammad Ali. It's as clear-cut as it gets. Even if you reverse some of the decisions he didnt deserve late in the decade he was still the best that ever did it. Nobody ever did more in any heavyweight era.

 

I don't think that it is over rated.

However there might have been other golden eras if the best possible fights had been made.

 

If it's widely considered the best decade by the majority, then it can't be overrated. It is over-discussed however. Even I get tired of seeing 70's threads taking up 40-60% of the front page everytime I log in.

The fighters in that era had both the talent and the credentials to deserve their status. Even if you removed Ali, you'd still have one hell of a lineup with Frazier, Foreman, Norton, Holmes being incredible hall of Fame worthy fighters themselves. The thing that made the era so great was that there was very little ducking going on, and the majority of fighters were highly competitive giving it their all in nearly every single match.

The contenders do sometimes get overrated with people acting as if every single one of them would easily destroy people in other eras. The reason even the contenders get a lot of praise is that they were the last generation of old school, tough as old boots fighters who left it all in the ring pleasing the crowd and taking on everybody with a pulse. Lyle, Quarry, Chuvalo, Bonavena, Young, Shavers, Bugner, etc left no stone unturned and gave the fans their money's worth with respectable records of their own.

I think part of the reason the decade is rated so high is because what followed was often lackluster. Even when we occasionally got good fights in the 80's, the momentum didn't stay for very long. Holmes vs Cooney was a great event with lots of hype, but then Holmes followed it up with the rather dull and completely 1 sided Cobb fight. Ali was humiliated instead of retiring gracefully. Witherspoon won the title, then lost it immediately which became a common trend for 80's champs who failed to stick around for very long passing the titles around like hot potato. Holmes was the only consistent champion throughout much of the 80's but he had a few questionable decisions, missed a few key fights, and lost back to back fights to a light heavyweight who most people had written off. Even when we got the exciting Mike Tyson tearing through the division, it seemed nobody could really give him a challenge other than simply surviving to hear the final bell. The biggest disappointment about the 80's was that on average, some of the fighters had even more talent than some of the 70's guys. Many of them were tall, athletic, quick, with decent power, but many of them squandered their careers getting on drugs or simply failing to do their absolute best. So it's pretty understandable that people longed for the older era with so many colorful personalities and the majority of fighters doing their best in spite of their shortcomings.

 

To play the part of politician but without the crookedness, every fight fan has their favorite fighters, their contemporaries, their own era's. To each their own, different strokes for different folks. It is not worth the argument, just enjoy your favorites, none better, none worse.

 

sports writer and Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson has referred to peaks, not in reference to boxing, but he has said there is a "high water mark, that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back"

Oct 1 1975 Manila was a high water mark for sure

 

Any era can be overrated as can any individual fighter. The one criticism I have about the 70s is that too much emphasis is placed on the memory of the “ heavyweight “ division when in fact there were also other divisions which were booming.

 

I totally agree, different tastes.

 

How big was boxing in the 70s.?

Well, in early primary school, our teacher suddenly dropped tools and turned on the wall mount tv and said “Let’s watch the fight”.

What fight we thought? Jeeze, we were under 10 years old. But hey, anything beats school work. Let’s have a look/see.

It turned out to be Ali vs Dunn in Munich Germany. We watched it from go to whoa including Ali’s arm socket wrenching winding at fights end.

It provided for my first exposure to an arm chair critic - my mate sitting next to me who sagaciously observed that Ali wasn’t doing so well at the start because his trunks were TOO big!

LOL, I’ll never forget and I must say, it may not be the worst thing I’ve read/heard, given some random drop ins on the General Forum - quite a bit of “Trunks Are Too Big” opining on there also.

Anyway, my mate was right, Ali’s trunks were too big, nothing like the more fashionably cut trunks of the 60s - but I’ve gained sufficient knowledge since to know that those big trunks likely didn’t impact his performance - though it may still be up for debate. Hahaha.

 

Jimmy Young no great fighter could’ve beaten Ali and Norton when it happened. Albeit a very fat Ali. And the two punchers of the era not named Shavers. When Jimmy Young beats arguably your second best HW In your era in his prime it ain’t that good!