How good were top HW boxers from 50's compared to 60's and 70's?

I think Walcott, Liston, Marciano, Charles, Archie Moore, Harold Johnson, Patterson, Ingo, Machen, Zora are an exceptional top ten for any era. Add in old Louis, Maxim, Williams, Baker, Nino, Holman, Satterfield, Jackson, Layne, Lastarza and more and it’s a deep field.
I think a lot of 50s guys carried well into the 60s amd 70s even. Which are considered “stronger” which I’m not so sure of.

 

50s much stronger decade than most think. It still comes decisively after the 60s and 70s for me, but the 50s was very solid. You had Charles, Walcott, Marciano, and Moore in the first half and Patterson, Liston, Folley, Machen, and Williams in the second half. Pretty solid.

 

Plus a slew of probably a dozen other fighters that registered a good win or two.

 

As already mentioned, the better heavies from the late fifties carried over to the sixties and were some of the decade’s better fighters. An aging Floyd Patterson even saw somewhat of a resurgence in the early seventies. I believe the seventies Were a decisively better decade than either of the previous two, but the sixties and fifties were about equal.