When Was Heavyweight Boxing Last Exciting For You?

Do you think it's the fight that defines this era?

And well, if you are taking random fights to prove this era is boring I can chose any given Henry Akinwande or Larry Donald fight from 90s and use it as evidence of 90s being the most boring era ever

 

We are in an exciting heavyweight era, and I can't understand why some don't agree.

When Fury and Usyk clashed, we were fortunate to see a collision between two giants, the like of which we had not seen since Holyfield fought Lewis.

It is an era of giants generally.

Whatever you think of Joshua and Wilder, they towered tall over their peers, and created incredible fights.

We have men like Dubois and Parker tearing the rankings up, so you have another huge fight right there.

I am not seeing much weakness in the Ring top ten right now.

 

Hi Guys.
On a personal level it was when the below were fighting each other :
Norton
Spencer
Shavers
Ellis
Quarry
Lyle
Foreman
Patterson
Frazier
Bonavena
Leotis Martin
Al Lewis
Mac Foster
Larry Holmes
so roughly ten years from say 66/67 t0 75/76.
stay safe guys, chat soon.

 

PS - Ali of course.

 

watching the development and pedigree of Joshua. I've watched lots of heavies developing through the years and just kind of felt this will be the last blue chipper in my lifetime. Man, it seems like a long time ago he was selling out arenas on his climb up the ladder.

 

Fury Vs. Wilder 3:

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Hi Fergy.
Thanks buddy, it's not so much a list, more a timeline of the scene during the years stated, I feel that period threw up many a ATG fighter, in particular the early to mid 70s, I feel blessed to have been a active boxing fan during that period, reading about and latterly watching the likes of , Ali, Frazier, Foreman, in the lower weights, the fighter's of the calibre of, Foster, Galindez, Tiger, Conteh, Monzon, Valdes, Briscoe, Napoles, Palomino, Cuevas, Duran, De Jesus, Lopez, Canto, Ohba, Olivares, Pimentel, and far to many to mention, for me that decade stacks up against any before or since, me and my rose tinted glasses again.
stay safe buddy, chat soon.

 

Parker after AJ was sort of just “A guy” recently he’s been on a great tear, it makes me excited to see DDD vs Parker like no other, same as Zhnag vs Parker I was thinking “Oh this is it” and… he’s back? then Zhang minced Wilder and he’s on the war path again! Coming up on an undefeated guy which could put him in a spot for something more interesting HOPING for Dubious vs Zhang…. the top guys are awesome and full of fun fights - Fury, AJ (Wilder WAS) Zhang, Parker, Bakole, Dubios, Usyk, Kabayle, Hrgovic, Chisora… I’m missing guys but there is a lot of great fights to be made.

 

Right after Wladmir retired.

We had so many strong, young prospects on the horizon ready to take the world by storm: Fury, Wladmir, Joshua, Whyte, Parker, Joyce, etc. It was a much needed resurgence of the HW division. Contenders like Povetkin, Chisora were still making noise and holding their own. I thought for a while we'd potentially get another era as good as the 90's or even the 70's. There was so much talent and so many great potential matchups.

Boy was I naive and far too hopeful looking back at the timeframe in hindsight. But can you blame anyone? If you told people that a completely unknown obese Mexican, an old Chinese guy, and a Ukrainian moving up from Cruiserweight would completely unravel the division you'd be laughed at and called an utter fool. If only Saudi Season happened back then, maybe we could've gotten all those guys fighting in their primed and much sooner.

What sucks the most out of this era is Usyk only has maybe 1-2 more big fights left in him before he retires for good, leaving no obvious heir to pass the torch to. Dubois could end up being the next big thing, but he's disappointed not once, but twice so I'm not holding my breath. All those promising young fighters are now in their mid to late 30's and have been in so many wars.

 

Joshua and Wilder didn't tower over their peers and neither did Fury. Lewis beat 3 to 4 times the number of contenders that Fury and Wilder did so that's an offensive comparison

 

Forward to? Keep in mind I lost my interest with the dismantling of the Championship Distance.

In terms of anticipation, it was Holmes-Shavers II after seeing what Earnie did to Norton. While Shavers was widely beloved, Norton was expected to win.

Earnie had appeared to have proved himself over longer distances with Henry Clark I, Tiger Williams, Ali and Holmes I (although Larry was dominant). Holmes abruptly seemed aging and vulnerable after Weaver I, while Shavers had proved ability to turn a match with a single shot.

Larry wasn't yet well liked and widely accepted until after Ali, with the Berbick shutout and stunning way he wrecked a peaking Leon Spinks (who many scribes wrote would become a two time Champion with a close SD over the Assassin).


The final HW bout I enjoyed as it unfolded was the Holyfield-Dokes barnburner. Dokes had put together a five year 11 win streak to get back to this ;point, and it was an obvious crossroads match. Michael was by now a sentimental favorite, but this one stamped Evander as a legitimate HW.

I never did PPV. Ali brought live HW title bouts to network television with his defense against Lyle in 1975, and that ended 11 years later with Jinx-Assassin II in 1986, the final HW title bout to last the Championship Distance. (The next day at work, EVERYONE who watched it was disgusted by the judge's decision, and that included women who didn't usually watch any sports.)

On the other hand, we were expecting an extremely angry Holmes to do to the seemingly spindly Michael what he'd done to brother Leon and Marvis. Merely by going the Championship Distance a second time in HW competition against an ATG, Michael stamped himself as a legitimate HW. (The Jinx was expected to get wiped out by Tyson though. Tyson was simply too fast out the gate, while Jinx never halted a world class opponent more quickly than David Sears in three rounds, when Michael weighed 170. It was also obvious Michael couldn't hurt him.

Was Douglas-Tyson a giant shock? Not to many fans, as Greg Page's KD of Tyson in sparring was a big news item. (Liston's title loss was a much bigger shock after the GOAT's weak 1963 campaign. Considering what Doug Jones and Henry Cooper had done to him, it seemed going in as though Sonny's jab alone might be enough. Objectively, a vastly bigger upset than Foreman, although Kinshasa completely revived boxing.)

 

It was Fury, Jodhua, Wilder and the rest.

Plenty could have been done with that.