Hell yeah! Tapia was a beast in his prime. Can't forget guys like Rafael Marquez and Israel Vasquez as well.
Guys not hungry when they are unproven and making millions before they have 20 fights under belt. Think of B-Hop. He had defended his title over a dozen times before he fought Trinidad and never made a million for a fight.
Fighters protecting their 0, A side boxers always getting the rub of the green and in cases of Joshua and Canelo, you have to knock them out to win.
What fights did AJ have that had questionable judging? All but 2 of his victories came by knockout. He beat Parker handily and shutout Ruiz in the rematch.
Today's boxing is focused too much on business. Boxing is barely a sport anymore. No one needs to fight anyone, because 6 belts per division.
Your comment on Spence and Crawford is a perfect example of what is wrong with todays boxing. 4 years and a fight with these two is nowhere in sight. Could you imagine Duran winning a welterweight belt in say 1979 then he and Sugar Ray fight in the same division for years and never fight one another? Or Joe Frazier avoids a returning Muhammed Ali for 3 years? Arguello moves to 140 wins a belt and avoids Aaron Pryor for years? Fighters like Duran, Hagler ,Frazier and Ali wanted to prove they were the best. Todays fighters want to be a ppv star
I kindve stopped watching any fights, ill still watch the highlights and stuff. And still follow the sport but matchups have become far too predictable and the top guys are no longer wanting to fight each other. So boxing has been on a downslide lately.
Truly great matchups are so few and far between now. Compare the past couple years to 2007, for instance. Boxing will always be my favorite sport, but it isn't the same.
Boxing has been in shambles for a few years now. Young american fighters focus their career on big money/low reward fights and aren't interested in their legacy anymore. The talent pools is more international than ever but the problem is that most of the money is still being made in the US. Money thirsty promoters don't want their US/Mexican/Puerto rican cash cows to face the best and would rather build them meaningless careers. As UFC is growing more popular all over the world, these are very short sighted business decisions that are quickly killing the attractiveness of the sport. One thing hasn't changed though : jdges are as corrupted as they've ever been.
What might help would be if the four major sanctioning bodies worked together to require unification bouts within a certain number of months. You either have to unify or you have to vacate. (Of course that'll never happen. The more champions there are, the more big money fights there are.)
Being truthful boxing at the moment is terrible. The top fighters hardly ever fight and when they do it is rarely an even match up. There is so much ducking, risk avoiding and generally just not wanting to fight. Good prospects can't get fights as they are seen as risks. Modern boxers seem to be twitter warriors. There are exceptions but not many. And don't get me started on the alphabet organisations or the completely unprofessional promoters. I am really down on boxing at the moment i'm afraid.
The talent is there for this era to be a very good/borderline great era but the networks, alphabet belts and ducking by both fighters and promoters is preventing it from happening and keeping this era in the 'meh' category.