Was the 80s actually stronger than the 70s heavyweight era

Good answer.
Back then the heavyweight division looked awful at times, apart from Holmes.
I'm not saying the era had no talent or good fights, but the 70 s beat it down.

 

I think i agree with this....

1980s - Cocaine
1990s - Cocaine and Steroids! Boom

 

If we take say '73 we had Foreman and Norton peaking, Quarry having one of his best years, Frazier and Ali still very good, and Lyle, Shavers and Bugner on the rise. And all of them had at least one fight with the others that very year.

'74 was pretty much the same. And while several of the above were fading out in '75 (or as Foreman, went AWOL) it still gave us Manilla.

Don't think there were years like that in the 80's. Fighters were burning out too fast and happy not trying to unify.

 

This illustrates better than any other post on this thread why the edge should go to the 70's as the better decade for HW's. Great summary!

 

An era's greatness is defined by great fights being made.

That simply didn't happen often enough in the 80's, too many missed opportunities/cancellations/delays to regard it as a particularly "great" or strong era. Even perhaps the most elite boxer of that decade (Holmes) still missed some key names. Witherspoon started off great, but then became hot/cold. Ditto for Pinklon Thomas who had so much talent and then ruined it on drugs. By the time Tyson got there, the division was a bit of a wasteland outside of a few guys like Bruno and Ruddock who were actually bothering to stay in shape and remain active.

 

70's is greater, of course. When did this start, saying the 80's is greater? Was this started by somebody that wasn't even old enough to remember the 80's, let alone the 70's?

 

Big fights weren't made in the 1990s either. From a competitive standpoint the 1990s would also be a poor era.

An era can have talent and poor matchmaking

 

No, the 1980's decade is the 10 years that span 1st January 1980 to 31st December 1989.

 

I think the difference is overexaggerated but I don't know about this.

 

I don't think so. the 70s was just stronger overall.

The 80s imo is the most underrated era of Heavyweights of all time. There was a lot of great talent, the problem is ,you either had Larry Dominating everyone, or you had Mike dominating everyone.

I will say, that the reason why Mike was dominating to be honest,is that everyone at the time had a style that was tailor made for him. They weren't afraid, they just walked backwards immitating Ali and not actaully giving Mike angles like Ali so Mike blew them up.
Once the 90s came, he started to look really really akward because all of a sudden,fighters started to come forward

 

While Holmes did dominate he had quite a few competitive fights.

 

Yes.

 

Yes.

 

No

 

Hey, there's a sucker born every minute. 80's was the worst.