breaking down this heavyweight era and others: Why today stinks!!

Did you ever visit Alta Bua?

 

So, I'd just encourage pro modern era people to let this thread die after this. If you're going to continue this debate, then make or bump a "pro" modern era thread so that that stays in peoples mind each time they look at the discussion threads, instead of "this heavyweight era sucks". Also, even if you've demonstrably won the argument, the winning argument gets lost deep in the thread where nobody reads it. Instead, they, like me, will open it up, look back a couple pages, and see a couple minor arguments that Jab appears to have the better arguments on. Anyway, I don't have the time right now, but if this is still going on in a couple weeks, I'll bring up an old one or start a new one.

So, I commented briefly on this a long time ago, but I'll do so again, this one, final time. Jab has some defensible points, while missing the big picture. Admittedly, even I get frustrated with the lack of what I consider big contender v contender matchups that should be happening and don't. But here are the main points that refute Jab's overall premise.

First, as I pointed out in my other response on this thread, the original numbers he pointed out are either unclear or, based on his response to my original posts question, sometimes factually mistaken or inaccurate, further limiting its relevance (i.e. he appears to list Sanders as ranked #9 and Peter # 8 when they fought Vitali, when in fact I believe they were both ranked either 2 or 3 at the time of the bout).

Mainly, however:

Jab's main point is that these numbers he's made are "objective" and illustrate the inferiority of this era. They are not, and do not. First, the numbers are fundamentally based on the subjective evaluations of Ring Magazine. That is not a good method for several reasons 1. Ring has always had funky rankings to some extent 2. its gotten much worse in the "modern era". This is a function to some extent of the proliferation of ranking organizations/championships. Different organizations rank differently. The cycle then deepens because with different fighters being made to fight different fighters in different organizations means to some extent a stratification in those bodies, leaving a single body like Ring in an impossible situation to try and sort those out into a clear overarching top 10. I'd wager the rankings back in Ali's day were fairly static, there were only 2 organizations, both fairly American centered, and probably both were fairly close to the designations that Ring Magazine made. Now, its much less American centered, Ring is much less relevant, and with multiple championship bodies, there are multiple ways to make it to the top of the rankings. That means that a consensus ranking, from a practical point of view, is vastly harder to achieve than 30 years ago. One could argue, as Jab might, that while that helps explain the phenomena, it still equals a lesser era, as there is less certainty about who the very top fighters are. I'm inclined to say that this is a weak point to the era (but that that one feature does not make the entire era bad by any means). However, even then a completely rational argument could be made that its not a weakness at all, but rather gives you a more diverse selection of top HW's.

On that point, we've seen an evolution in the records of the top challengers. Now the top challengers have a much better record than before, generally, but have fought fewer of the very best opponents. That's really a style preference, I'd prefer a more organized ordering of the top 10-15 to see more forced fights, but again, its debatable. The top people are still the top people, in fact, if you carefully scrutinize the records of the top performers, they are much less likely to lose to marginal people than earlier era top contenders. After losing to Adamek, Arreola went on a string of fighting legit top 60 or 70ish level opposition (but no top 20 level until Stiverne and Mitchell). He was undefeated and impressive in all of them, and if you look at the top contenders of Ali's era, they were much more likely to lose to that level of opponent (and also thus artificially and temporarily inflate the "poser", such as Scott LeDoux). Along those lines, the nostalgiasts are trying to have it both ways. They call modern Ross Purrity a bum, but when you look at his resume, it compares very favorably to many of the top contenders of Ali and even Holmes era. Weaver was considered one of Holmes best opponents, but when you line up his resume vs Purrity's resume, its really only marginally better. But in the current era, if you have as horrible a record as Weaver or Purrity, you will never get a real sniff of contender status. So that is one way one could argue the current era is better (or worse, depending on your taste).

In addition, while the argument can be made there are fewer top contender fights, the argument that the Champs are fighting fewer top contenders falls apart when understanding the above. For instance, take Vitali's opponents in his latest championship defense streak. Only 3 of the 9 of them (Gomez, Arreola, and Adamek) were ranked in the top 10 by Ring at the time he fought them. But when you look beyond that to their actual contender level status, only Holmes, Tyson, and maybe LL and Wlad have been more consistent in their opponent selection quality in the past 45 years among champs, and even that is only marginal. Solis and Chisora should have been ranked in the top 10 at the time, Solis subsequently has achieved that and Chisora almost certainly will be the replacement whenever they finally remove Helenius for inactivity. Briggs was a prior champ and top 10 guy, I personally think Charr will probably make it at some point, once he gets the right fight. That leaves Johnson, who many considered a top 10ish guy and were screaming that he was a stylistic nightmare for Vitali, and Sosnowski, who was Vitali's weakest defense but still had an incomparably better resume than such Frazier Ali Holyfield title defense victims as Zyglewicz, Coopman, and Cooper.

Finally, that is all just about the number and kind of top fights in the era, that is not the only way to view an era's favorability. A strong argument could be made that this era is superior to the prior era because of the level of competition and the dominance of the champs. HW's didn't have the global presence they do now or the skill level. With more people in the world, there are more top athletes who can find their niche in boxing. Now, because the level has been raised so high, we see not just very large guys compared to normal people winning championship, but true giants. We see not just guys who are able to make it through championship defenses by winning narrow decisions, or getting off the ground a lot squeaking by, or losing rounds and then pulling out a lucky ko, we see champs who are so dominant that they rarely even lose rounds. Again, all of this can be considered negatives as well as positives, but I would rather have dominant champs who are truly world tested.

What all this means is that along with 1. Ring never being great ranking challengers, Ring 2. is at a disadvantage in accurately rating the top 10 because of the less organized, less linear ranking of the ranking bodies. 3. that leads to an era that has a wider contender field (or more accurately about the same sized contender field but with less clear delineation as to a hierarchy), with fewer top contender matches, but equivalent title defenses, just not accurately tracked by Ring. 4. We have an era where losses are tolerated less, where a Mike Weaver type of fighter who was considered a top contender before is now considered a bum and 5. Even assuming the current era is weaker in terms of frequency or quality of contender matchups, there are plenty of other ways to chart the quality of an era where this era is superior.

All that said, a logic based debate such as Jab gave takes the debate level higher and allows us to flesh out more fully why the argument for this era being bad is wrong.

 

I think people may be missing a large underlying reason why this era is thought of as "weak". Maybe weak isn't the proper word for it but more along the lines of boring and not entertaining. Some fights are entertaining, I get a kick out of most Tyson Fury matches as they are entertaining and of course he can be outside of the ring as well, same with a few others. If you look at what fighters are remembered and what fighters that stick in people's mind it's the ones that entertained like Ali and Tyson both in completly different ways but just about everyone in the world knows these two Heavyweights. Today let's say the Champs and the division has good fighters but what they lack is charisma that entertainment factor and also the pure heart and drive to be a fighter..I don't mean a boxer but to be a fighter. Rarely ever do you see a match like Ali vs Frazier these days or Bowe vs Holyfield...these were two warriors going at it and today's Heavyweights seem more interested in not becoming brain dead when they retire which means everyone is way more cautious. This is something that is smart to do for themselves, not really for getting any kind of legacy because they'll most likely be forgotten for being so lackluster (outside of their respective countries that is). I think that's a fundamental point most on both sides are missing although I can't say I've read through every single post on this thread. It may be an era of good boxers but it's really hard to tell because no awesome battles or fights have really happened, nobody bangs it out like they used to leaving everything they have in the ring. I do have to commend those that do, I think Chris Arreola did so when fighting Vitali, he really tried but just couldn't overcome the height/reach advantage of Vitali or just wasn't skilled enough to do so but he gave it his all.

This is fundamentally what is missing from today's HW matchups, fights with two warriors battling it out for the championship, putting everything out there instead of being worried about getting knocked out every second. Anyways that's my two cents on why at least this era is viewed the way it is compared to the past and why it's popularity in America for instance is very low compared to the 90's. I know a lot of people could say well that's because no American heavyweight is doing well but I really think if an exciting champion was going around knocking everyone out in exciting fashion, nobody would care where he was from, they'd want to see the fights period.

 

Thanks, I was going for an approach that I don't think a lot of people have thought about as opposed to numbers and how many top ranked fighters fought this champ and that champ, etc. This is more of an overall physiological point of view of how people get into fights and what attracts most people to watching them.

 

If Wilder were to be given a title the biased haters would claim that the heavyweight division is better than ever. I think they are going to pay Oquendo to come out of retirement and fight Wilder, of course they will give Oquendo a high ranking before they fight. Oquendo was not good in his prime, has always had a glass chin, no stamina and easy to hit. Wonder if Oquendo will make more money if he loses? Can anyone answer that?

 

You better check your source because JAB's "numbers" were discredited in this thread.

In addition to Gomez, Arreola and Adamek, Peter was #2, Solis was #10 and Kevin Johnson was #10. That is 6 out of 10.

 

That is correct. Vitali is career 8-2 against RING top 10 opponents in 47 fights.

Byrd
Lewis
Sanders
K. Johnson
Peter
Gomez
Arreola
Johnson
Solis
Adamek

Chris Byrd 5-3 in 47 fights

Ibeabuchi
V. Klitsckho
W. Klitschko
Tua
Holyfield
Oquendo
McCline
W. Klitschko


Samuel Peter is 3-4 in 39 fights

W. Klitschko
Toney
Toney
Maskeav
V. Klitschko
Chambers
W. Klitschko


In contrast during the Golden Age of Heavies, George Foreman was also 8-2 in 47 fights.

Chuvalo
Peralta I
Kirkman
Frazier
Roman
Norton
Ali
Lyle
Frazier II
Young

Ken Norton was 5-5 in 50 fights

Ali
Ali II
Foreman
Quarry
Ali III
Middleton
Bobick
Young
Holmes
Cooney

Jimmy Young 3-5-1 in 55 fights

Page
Cooney
Ocasio II
Norton
Ali
Foreman
Lyle II
Lyle
Shavers II



Bold=top 5 rating at time of the fight.

Just interesting they all are roughly paced at the same number of top 10 ranked opponents. We see more top 5 meetings from the Golden Age however in this selection of fighters.