How do you know when you're looking at a good era?

One of the most hotly debated topics in boxing is evaluating the quality of any given weight class at any given time. There are always people who play the "yeah but who did he beat?" game (a game which can be played with literally any boxer in history where you dismiss them as overrated by looking at the resumes of their opponents, and failing that, the resumes of their opponents' opponents until you uncover a stack of bums). In reality, though, how do you know you're looking at a good era?

How do you discern whether a division that is ruled by a single dominant fighter is the way it is because the fighter is that good or everybody else is that bad?

How do you discern whether the lack of a clear champion is the result of everybody being elite or everybody being mediocre?

What makes, for example, Ron Lyle, Ken Norton, Ernie Shavers, and Leon Spinks better than Shannon Briggs, Tommy Morrison, Riddick Bowe and Ray Mercer? Or Byrd, Ruiz, Valuev, and Chagev?

 

OK, that's a good answer.

Now, based on that, if you were looking at the likes of an Ernie Shavers or a Ron Lyle, and compared him to the likes of, say, a Chris Byrd or David Tua, is it cut and dry just from looking at the footage to conclude the Shavers and Lyle are better?

What about Lyle vs. Povetkin? Just from looking at them, is it OBVIOUS that Lyle is the better boxer? Or Shavers vs. Briggs?

The second most dominant fighter of the golden era of heavyweights was George Foreman. Other than his amazing physical gift of brute power, could you look at footage of him and think, "We're looking at a great fighter right there!" compared to, say, Riddick Bowe or Lennox Lewis?

 

Some interesting answers here.

So let me ask you this. We are in what's considered possibly the strongest SMW division in its young history. If Ward were to go on to utterly dominate the SMW division and emerge from it undefeated and even unchallenged, would we look back on the division as not having been good simply because Ward didn't lose?

I believe we often look at the Spinks era as one of the mightiest LHW eras of all time. He emerged from it undefeated. Has that coloured your view of the era in retrospect? What about SRR in the welterweight division? Was it a strong division during his reign?

 

Out of curiosity, how do you rate the 2000s heavyweight division, when there were four champions?

 

So if today's heavies DID fight each other, you believe it would be considered a strong era? The two Klits do fight everybody, but among the rank and file, you're correct, there isn't a lot of in-fighting.