All in their prime which era wins the most matchups? Duran Leonard Hearns Pryor Arguello Curry Benitez VS Oscar Trinidad Mayweather Manny Marquez Mosley Cotto
My bad, new on this site. I read comments all the time, never posted a poll before. I have no agenda, just want to talk boxing. I was torn, because I thnk the 80's have the reputation as being the better era, but when I broke things down, I think it is close. Hearns is the only matchup that I think gives everyone trouble. His length and boxing (keeping his distance) makes it hard for me to pick anyone from the 2000's against him. Possibly Trinidad could catch him? The rest of the matchups are pick'em to me. If my money was on the table, I would go with 70's/80, cause of Hearns. I would love the Manny/Pryor matchup as well as Mosley/Leonard. I am going with the 70/80's
80s. Unfortunately, the overall skill/talent pool has gone down in the last couple decades. Just watch the films.
Is all this at 147lbs? I would assume so, being the only common division shared by those names. (Hearns never fought below it, nor Arguello ever above it) Some of those guys, however, spent only a tiny portion of their careers or the leaner and less storied parts of it @ WW. :think Very few of those match-ups then could be called prime for prime.
It is closer on paper than I would have thought, but the 2000's seems to stretch several years longer. I mean there's a fair amount of time between prime Mayweather & Pac and prime SSM and Oscar. The 80's fighters pretty much all fought near their peak at the same time, (Duran past peak) but the same can't be said of the 2000's fighters. Anyway the 80's era is stronger.
I do kind of like the parallels in a Marquez vs. Duran welterweight match-up, with both climbing very high with consistent (if not uninterrupted) success at the uppermost levels of competition over a lengthy campaign wherein both started in their late teens down in the bantam/feather range, both managing to still be ranked world class forces many years (decades, even!) later and many pounds (stones, even!) higher up the scale. Duran, however, is clearly the bigger man having fought all the way up to in name super middleweight but functionally cruiser (coming in drastically overweight in a 168lb contest and surpassing even the light heavy limit in the process) and was already fighting welterweights in his mid-late twenties, which Marquez is only just now beginning to do in his thirties and looking a bit overly bulky even in his better performances (Alvarado, Bradley & Pacquiao III & IV) since looking cumbersome and foolish in his ill-advised jump up emphasizing muscle gain in his WW debut. As great as Marquez is, I think you have to dismiss his chances against Duran under the "great bigger man beats a great little man" adage. Stylistically it would be a beauty to watch, but I just can't see Marquez pulling it off - especially if we are, necessarily, pitting him at thirty-something with a Duran who, if not still exactly in his lightweight peak & prime, is still damn close to it.
