The golden era of heavyweight boxing

Yep...forties were kind of a disaster with ww2 and all. Took awhile for everything to settle. As great as Ali and Frazier were do you think the FOTC would prove to have negative affects on boxing? Due to people being obsessed with being undefeated and possibly meeting another undefeated champ to have a “super fight”? To me the obsession with it and protecting fighters now a days has dramatically hurt boxing. When you can’t get the two best fighters in the ring it causes an extreme disinterest in the sport (Pac and Mayweather or Wilder and AJ for example)

 

Best time was clearly from the late 50s (Liston) to the early 2000s

 

Best era in my opinion
is from 1960 through 2000,
from that time period there's at
least 7 fighters that should be
placed in anyone's top 10-15
fighters of all time.
Ali
Liston,
Foreman,
Frazier,
Holmes,
Tyson,
Lewis,
Holyfield
Factor in fighters that could have been ATG's like Bowe,
Norton, Ibeabuchi, Dokes, Page, Witherspoon. and also
factor in some of the most dangerous punchers in heavyweight
history, Like Williams, Shavers, Lyle,Bruno, Ruddick and Tua. Some
of the greatest heavyweight fights happened during this time period.
Liston vs Williams, Ali vs Frazier 1-3, Ali vs Foreman, Ali vs Norton,
Holmes vs Norton , Holmes vs Cooney , Tyson vs Ruddick, Tyson vs Holyfield
Bowe vs Holyfield, 1-3 , Holyfield vs Dokes Foreman vs Lyle, Ali vs Shavers. It
was a special time for the heavyweights in my opinion, the best time.

 

And even when they did get made they were past prime. We were not given an endless amount of fights because no one wants to take risks.
Past prime or not at all fights that would have been good
Bowe v Lewis
Lewis v Holyfield (prime)
Tyson v Bowe
Tyson v Lewis (prime)
Tyson v Foreman
Foreman v Lewis
Foreman v Bowe
Tua v Wlad
Tua v Vit
Lewis v Byrd
Lewis v Wlad
Tyson v Tua
So many missed opportunities for greatness and this is just the 90s!!!!! As much as the 30s-50s gets shitted on there weren’t many fantasy fights you could have imagined in that time period because they all for the most part met at some points in their careers. I’m sure I missed some fantasy fights somewhere

 

1975.

I don't give Ali a get out of jail free card for fighting the likes of Wepner and a Bugner rematch. And nobody was picking Joe for that Thrilla in Manila and thought he was washed up. then the path of least resistance really reared its head.

 

Tough criteria as I'm in the group that thinks up until the 1960s...Mob had a say so in who fought.

Today the word went from Mob to promoters working with a single network. HBO or ShowTime fighters. Now PBC, DAZN.

HW the glory division IMO has always been the weakest. Only a few great mentioned per era, unlike the divisions below HW.
With that said- I like the 1960s-1990s. Those 3 had hot talent fighters with power & the last generation of HWs that threw a lot of punches.

 

Ok, my bad! It's a long night at work...brain is rebooting. Have to think about it.

 

I think it all started with Liston, I do not detract from the successes of the previous champions but Liston fought with Ali and then it all started until the end of the 90s. I have to admit that this current era is also very good...

 

I know most of you are tired of us old guys referencing the 70's. But it most likely was the best era of heavyweight boxing.

Everyone in the world seemingly knew who the heavyweight champ was in the 70s, regardless of who it was.

The 70's had 4 dominate champions, with all being top ten all time greats: Frazier, Foreman, Ali and Holmes.

The 70"s had interesting and competent contenders like Ken Norton, Jerry Quarry, Earnie Shavers, Ron Lyle, Oscar Bonavena, George Chuvalo, Jimmy Young and Gerrie Coetzee.

 

Liston to Present.... There were a few, short transitional periods like 75-79 but otherwise we started to have real athletes fighting.

 

“Real athletes”...you mean steroids lol. And they don’t actually fight each other...which is the point of this post.