Starting out from 1900s, which were the most competitive weight classes per each decade? By competitive I mean the number of strong boxers and the matches they played against each other without avoiding top opponents.
Hard to beat the 175lb division in the 70's for being a ultra competitive division and for fighting each other.
If my facts and memory are correct, which, despite being a relatively young nut, most of the time clearly aren't: Thr Lightweight division could've been the most competitive one in ALL decades of boxing history, but the 2020s lightweights came around with defective balls and sadly because their lack of them, they refuse to face each other.
The 80's WW divsion was truly special. It started out with SRL, Duran, Hearns and Cuevas (Benitez and Palomino had no WW fights in the 80's), and by the mid 80 there was a new good generation with Curry, Starling and Honeyghan. The 90's WW division was also very strong with Whitaker, DLH, Trinidad, Mosley etc, but not quite on that level.
Middleweight in the 1960s. They were a lot of close competive fights that went the distance and rematches and trilogies. Very evenly matched. Tiger, Giardello, Fullmer, Griffith, Benvenuti
You beat me to it. I'll add George Benton, Joey Archer, Rubin Carter and an aging atg Sugar Ray Robinson to the names you already mentioned. Talk about loaded.
1930s: BW 1940s: LHW 1950s: MW 1960s: BW 1970s: LHW 1980s: WW 1990s: HW, maybe? 2000s: WW or FW 2010s: SFly
The mid-80’s lightweights were all the rage at the time. Camacho Mancini Rosario Ramirez Bramble Tyrone Crawley Harry Arroyo Jimmy Paul Robin Blake Tony Baltazar Greg Haugen