breaking down this heavyweight era and others: Why today stinks!!

thats a lot of time and effort to list all you did just to try and discredit K2:yep....

as I always say... they can only fight what is in front of them good or bad, they have dominated for years..(wlad almost 10 years now) and thats impressive no matter what you think of the division.

 

How do do define this era?

For instance I think the mid 05-08 had alot of interesting talent mixing it up for the divided alphabet belts. And I think 09-10 Wlad, Vitali, Haye, Chambers, Adamek top 5 was a strong group.

Right now is a transitional stage and it looks bad with Pulev, Fury, and the like just kind of inheriting positions that have been vacated or cleaned out. Something more interesting may take shape or it may not, too early to tell.

 

I see it like this:

Wlad Era 09-present
Vacant 05-09 (Byrd, Wlad)
Vitali Era 03-04
Lewis Era 99-03.
Holyfield Era 96-99
Vacant 94-96 (Moorer, Foreman, Bowe, Tyson)
Holyfield Era 91-94
Tyson Era 87-91
Vacant 85-87 (Spinks, Tyson)

 

Keep in mind at the time of these fights the heavyweight division was still in it's "worst state ever". A criticism that has been so constant that it cannot always be true.

Lorenzo Zanon 6'2" Italian fighter with very, very limited power. I think he only had 7 KO victories for his entire career. At the time of his fight with Holmes he had a record of 25-4-2. Today he would be dismissed as complete garbage. At the time he was dismissed as complete garbage. 11 of his 25 wins were against designated losers, fighters below 50% winning percentage. He borders on being a nonentity in absolute fairness.

Leroy Jones 24-0-1 at the time he fought Holmes but of those 24 wins 9 of them were against opponents with losing records. Jones was 6'5" and weighed between 270 lbs fat to 254 lbs flab. http://www.bing.com/images/search?q...508894F25DE28F89A5A9E6E6CD130&selectedIndex=7

 

The thing about comparing era vs era is the majority of the time the people doing the comparison scrutinize the current era with more detail than the previous eras. By the time I get into the Walcott and Marciano era, it is going to be obvious that today's heavyweights are definitely not the worst ever. In fact, I think that currently we have one of the better selection of participants.

 

I go by who is #1 even if they have only one title or even no title. Byrd was #1 when Wlad beat him again in 2006 which is when Wlad became #1.

 

The Joe Louis era was definitely better than today. That's because many of Joe's opponents didn't even weigh 200 pounds and yet were still fighting for the heavyweight title.

 

Then how did an unskilled juggernaut like Willard have so much success ?

Was Moorer's era better too since he was a small heavy ?

 

The Rocky era was better than today's too. Rocky weighed under 190 pounds for most of his fights and was undefeated.

 

Zanon was regarded as a gimme defense at the time, but Larry was using him as a tune up to face Jones, who was, like Mathis, an overweight but talented boxer. It wasn't one of Larry's more impressive wins (though he did manage Zanon far more easily than an admittedly ancient Quarry and Norton did when they fought him).

Jones may have been overweight, but had victories over 28-1-1 Dino Denis and future titleholder Mike Weaver.Had Jones not suffered a detached retina, he would probably have fit in with the likes of Page, Tubbs et al. The 80's were renowned for having a bunch of talented, but underachieving contenders. Jones pretty much fit that description to a tee.