Era's... are they really 'much' better, one to an other?

@thistle of course you can only fight in your era, there has been great fighters all era's and the great fighters are often defined by their dance partners.

Many fighters as you know never got the chance to see how good they were as boxing politics and simply born in the wrong era, Charley Burley being a prime example.

 

There are definitely eras where talent is stacked in and around the same division(s), creating interesting and meaningful fights (not always entertaining ones, but often so).

The light heavyweights of the late 1970s/early ‘80s was ridiculously stacked, and many fought each other in various combinations: Matthew Saad Muhammad, Marvin Johnson, Victor Emilio Galindez, James Scott, Eddie Mustafa Muhammad, John Conteh, Yaqui Lopez, a tier slightly below that included Mike Rossman, Jerry Martin and others … and Dwight Qawi and Michael Spinks rising through the ranks all the while.

There’s also the 1970s heavyweights, whom I don’t need to enumerate, and the early 1980s junior lightweights to include Alexis Arguello (on his way up), Bobby Chacon, Cornelius Boza-Edwards, Rafael Limon and Rolando Navarette, among others.

Mix ‘em and match ‘em, pull two names out of a hat with groups like that and you’re getting quality fights.

 

There were fine skills at play with great weight on the outcome, i.e. a lot of reward at play for even the slightest risk. And despite protestations otherwise and contentions of a robbery, I saw Artur winning it by the same margin.

I can show you footage of Charles and Conn looking sloppy, tentative or desperate on film. Does that make them poor boxers? Not at all. Sometimes in the ring your preferred script gets away from you. You do weird things to get it back into your flow.

 

No era gets called 'the best' as it's happening though. You think they didn't say the same when Spinks fought Qawi? They didn't- and this was at the end of pretty golden time for light-heavies (mid-70s and early 80s)

 

Comparing Eras?
I think Beterbiev compares very favourably with some previous Lhvy Champs.
Christoforidis
Bettina
Olin
Pascal
Hill
Mills
Lesnevich
Tiger
Pastrano
C Willams
G Johnson
Torres
Tarver
M Johnson
For example
Okay, he might not be on a par with H Johnson ,Conn,Moore, but let's look at some of the rated 175pounders during Moore's reign.
Pompey
Slade
Lamotta
Turpin
R Jones
Hecht
Nardico
Buxton
Hoepner
Andrews
Colin
Whitlock
Rinaldi
Durelle
Spier
Stretz
Anthony
Besmanoff
Shoppner
Hinnant
Calzaran
Ray
Halafihi
Rodriguez
Amonti
Calderwood
Von Clay
Holt
etc
How many of them would be favoured over Beterbiev?
The two best Lhv's Conn beat were Lesnevich and Bettina.I would pick Beterbiev to beat them both.
Saad Muhammad v Beterbiev would be a hell of a fight, ditto Artur v Conteh and Galindez,and that is generally conceded to have been the deepest era for the light heavies.
How would Qawi fare coming into Beterbiev?

 

i had a draw or Bivol by one but either way, an excellent fight!