How Great is This Heavyweight Division?

not that great actually.
The fact that oldies from the previous era hung onto top10 or even top5 positions kinda tells you all you need to know.

 

Mediocre

 

No one stands out as the top fighter, all of them beatable and not dominant.

 

James Toney was ranked top 3 when he was obese so I guess that era was even worse according to your standards.

No old , fat middleweight would be top 3 in this era

 

I don't think it is a particularly great group although they are obviously not horrible. By the way, you did a fantastic job of describing their diverse styles in just a couple of words.

 

It's not a great era.

But it is an interesting and intriguingly competitive era.
There are some unusual combinations of attributes in the mix.

The biggest reason it isn't a great era, though, is that the biggest fights don't get made enough - too many primadonnas demanding to be accepted as A-side without good reason and too much waiting to make the big fights (Wilder has been cancerous on both counts).

 

I'd have to give you that, but that was basically due to beating Holyfield from his own previous generation, wasn't it?!

 

It’s poor. I know Fury has been inactive (7 bouts in nearly 7 yrs) but he will probably retire having had about 35 fights, & that includes taking on Usyk & AJ. He literally has run out of credible opponents !
The young guns are a mile off & won’t be challenging anytime soon. Fury, Usyk, Wilder, probably Joshua will be long gone.

 

Holyfield is another example! He was still getting title shots at 47 and almost doing enough to win.

 

WBA titleshots on name and the corrupt WBA ranking system only... he wasn't top10 ranked by any stretch after his loss to Toney back in the day. The WBA had their own thing going on, with the likes of Ruiz, Rahman, McCline, Holyfield, Valuev and probably not by their own choice, the actually retty good Chagaev. Nobody decent got into their rankings.
And, the belt Holyfield was fighting for at the end of his career shouldn't even be in Valuev's hands. He had lost, then they duplicated the belt and went on to strip Chagaev of his, about a week before the unification with Wlad.
It's like the WBC belt after Vitali up until Fury vs Wilder I.

 

If you lump eras by approximate decade spans, has to be one of the worst.

 

What I meant to say is Evander was being competitive to top 5 guys like Valeuv , not that he was ranked by Ring. But many thought Vander should have won that title. David Haye only did marginally better than him and he was in the prime of his career!

 

Before boozerweight gets the inevitable mention;

Usyk and other fine former cruisers do not represent proof of cruiserweight's superiority. He/they is/are actually proof of how varied and great and mythically fascinating a division heavyweight is, i.e. heavyweights who should never have been cruisers because cruiser is a stupid division that should never have existed.

The original eight is where it's at.