Mike Tyson compares his era to the new era.

Lewis would have exploded all over Ali and won clearly.

Many of today's super HWs like Vitali or even AJ (arguably) would have beaten Ali. Too small and doesn't hit hard enough.

 

Well you picked a lot of random dates and compared them with a single year from modern age.

So basically 2017 should compete with entire 100+ years of boxing before that?

That's the problem with people who bring down modern era. They complain about how poor boxing is today and bring up everyone from Dempsey, SRR, Louis, Ali, SRL, Duran and Mike Tyson as "old school" guys as if those people fought in the same era when they were decades apart.

Also the fact that those names from the past were big and had hype behind them doesn't necessarily mean they could compete as well with modern guys head to head. The heavyweights you listed were mostly cruiserweightish guys who would all have massive problems with the likes of Joshua, Kličko, even with the likes of Pulev and Whyte who are big guys on their own.

Let's make it fair and take 10 years of the modern era (2007-2017) and compare it with any 10 year era before 1990 in terms of quality of fighters and fighters over all the weight classes. Find me an era of ten years that saw better 15 fighters than Floyd, Pacquiao, Marquez, Klitschko, Ward, Kovalev, Golovkin, Calzaghe, Rigondeaux, Lomachenko, Chocolatito, Crawford, Froch, Canelo and Cotto, all of them in their prime. And I probably missed some fighters here. Let's also not forget that it's a transitional era and many of the current fighters will become bigger and peak later like Joshua but have still briefly touched this era and could be attributed to it.

 

I think Tyson would struggle against today's HWs. They're bigger, taller and faster than the HWs in Tyson's time.

Superheavyweights were still new when Tyson was fighting. Tyrell Biggs was the first SHW gold medalist, and he was around 230. He'd be considered on the small side in today's HW division.

 

If fighters really do get better than comparing them to all the fighters that came before shouldn't be a problem. Cars and planes today are actually better than the ones from a hundred years ago. You can compare them to all of the cars and planes before them. But people haven't significantly improved in the same ways in the last hundred thousand years.

I'm not trying to bring down the modern era. I think it's about the same level as the seventies, which was a pretty good era. Averaged out over all of boxing, things are generally about the same decade by decade, but no era is every divisions golden age, certainly not this one.

Not really. I think Moorer and Holyfield were the only ones who started in cruiserweight before moving up to heavy. The others were always heavies. Lewis and Bowe meanwhile are as big as and would probably beat anybody in the top 10 today. Foreman was 6'4" a "small" superheavy and one of the hardest punchers ever. He beat two superheavies: Chuck Wepner in his 4th match and Gerry Cooney in his comeback. Tony Tucker was a superheavy. Holyfield beat Bowe and Tyson made a career out of beating larger men. I think he beat 9 superheavies. That bodes well for him. Tim Witherspoon beat at least 5 superheavies.

Things are roughly the same decade to decade.

1920s
1. Harry Greb 2. Benny Leonard 3. Gene Tunney 4. Mickey Walker 5. Pancho Villa 6. Tommy Loughran 7. Jack Dempsey 8. Bud Taylor 9. Tony Canzoneri 10. Tiger Flowers
1930s
1. Henry Armstrong 2. Joe Louis 3. Barney Ross 4. Tony Canzoneri 5. Jimmy McLarnin 6. Freddie Steele 7. Panama Al Brown 8. Benny Lynch 9. Jack Berg 10. Kid Chocolate
1940s
1. Sugar Ray Robinson 2. Ezzard Charles 3. Willie Pep 4. Joe Louis 5. Ike Williams 6. Manuel Ortiz 7. Sandy Saddler 8. Billy Conn 9. Jake LaMotta 10. Marcel Cerdan
1950s
1. Sugar Ray Robinson 2. Archie Moore 3. Kid Gavilan 4. Rocky Marciano 5. Pascual Perez 6. Sandy Saddler 7. Gene Fullmer 8. Carmen Basilio 9. Joe Brown 10. Harold Johnson
1960s
1. Eder Jofre 2. Muhammad Ali 3. Carlos Ortiz 4. Emile Griffith 5. Fighting Harada 6. Nino Benvenuti 7. Vicente Saldivar 8. Ruben Olivares 9. **** Tiger 10. Flash Elorde
1970s
1. Roberto Duran 2. Carlos Monzon 3. Jose Napoles 4. Alexis Arguello 5. Miguel Canto 6. Wilfredo Gomez 7. Carlos Zarate 8. Muhammad Ali 9. Bob Foster 10. Yoko Gushiken
1980s
1. Sugar Ray Leonard 2. Marvin Hagler 3. Salvador Sanchez 4. Michael Spinks 5. Tommy Hearns 6. Julio Cesar Chavez 7. Mike Tyson 8. Aaron Pryor 9. Larry Holmes 10. Jeff Chandler
1990s
1. Pernell Whitaker 2. Roy Jones Jr. 3. James Toney 4. Evander Holyfield 5. Julio Cesar Chavez 6. Bernard Hopkins 7. Felix Trinidad 8. Ricardo Lopez 9. Oscar De La Hoya 10. Terry Norris
2000s
1. Manny Pacquiao 2. Floyd Mayweather Jr. 3. Bernard Hopkins 4. Erik Morales 5. Joe Calzaghe 6. Juan Manuel Marquez 7. Roy Jones Jr. 8. Marco Antonio Barrera 9. Rafael Marquez 10. Pongsaklek Wonjongkam
2010s
1.Roman Gonzalez 2.Vasyl Lomachenko 3.Andre Ward 4.Terence Crawford 5.Sergey Kovalev 6.Gennady Golovkin 7.Nonito Donaire 8.Sergio Martinez 9.Naoya Inoue 10.Guillermo Rigondeaux

 

[QUOTE="OvidsExile, post: 18558156, member: 94943"
Foreman was 6'4" a "small" superheavy and one of the hardest punchers ever. He beat two superheavies: Chuck Wepner in his 4th match and Gerry Cooney in his comeback. Tony Tucker was a superheavy. Holyfield beat Bowe and Tyson made a career out of beating larger men. I think he beat 9 superheavies. That bodes well for him. Tim Witherspoon beat at least 5 superheavies.[/QUOTE]

Don't forget Jack "the giant" O Halloran, who George KOd in his first career. The former American football player was, I think six foot six and heavier than George at fight time.

 

Tyson knocks Joshua and Wilder spark out.

Prime Tyson would have kod that Wladmir from 2 weeks ago, in 2 rounds

 

(Eastern) Europe is "dominating" because post-Soviet boxers are turning professional instead of remaining amateurs all their life. Given the size of the region the number of world class boxers they're producing isn't low or high, just proportional. In the top 10 P4P there are 3 of them, two Americans, one Mexican, one Nicaraguan, one Cuban, and two Japanese.

I'm talking about quality of division. Golovkin is already one of the most formidable Middleweights of all time, but you don't have to look far to find contenders who were not the best of their era who would likely beat him. Benny Briscoe and Rocky Valdez (more so) come to mind. So do Gene Fullmer and Tiger Flowers. Because these fighters fought in more contested divisions. How is Golovkin supposed to become a P4P all time great now? Beat Canelo? Then what? He'd have to move up to 168 to fight the likes of DeGale when he's scraping past Jacobs, and I wouldn't favor him.

That's not the only division you could do that for, but it's one of the starkest given Golovkin's dominance.

 

That's pretty simple. Let's look at the 80's. We can divide it by ATG's and HOF fighters.

All Time Greats:

Roberto Duran (greater than Floyd)
Sugar Ray Leonard (greater than Pacquiao)
Tommy Hearns (greater than Marquez)
Marvin Hagler (greater than Klitschko)
Wilfred Benitez (greater than Chocolatito)
Julio Cesar Chavez (much greater than Canelo)
Salvador Sanchez (greater than Ward)
Mike Tyson (greater than Kovalev)
Alexis Arguello (greater than Cotto)
Larry Holmes (much greater than Joshua)
Wilfredo Gomez (greater than Lomachenko)

Hall of Famers:

Aaron Pryor (greater than Froch)
Michael Spinks (greater than Calzaghe)
Dwight Muhammad Qawi (greater than Crawford)

I haven't even mentioned Marlon Starling, Donald Curry, Azumah Nelson, Edwin Rosario, etc.

So that era had at least 10 bona fide pound-for-pound All Time Greats. We have 3, maybe 4 in the modern era.

You're not going to fare any better comparing that list to the 70's, which had Ali, Foreman, Frazier, Duran (lightweight), Cervantes, Locche, Monzon, Jofre, Napoles, etc.

Nor in the 50's, where you have Sugar Ray Robinson, Archie Moore, Kid Gavilan, Gene Fullmer, Carmen Basilio, Jake LaMotta, Willy Pep, Sandy Saddler, Ezzard Charles, Joe Walcott, Rocky Marciano.

The 60's are basically a blend of the best of the 50's and 70's plus Sonny Liston, Emille Griffith, Nino Benvenuti, and Dick Tiger, so no luck there either.

I'm not going to go further, but I think it's fairly obvious that past eras have produced more historically great fighters than the one's we're seeing now. That's no knock on modern boxing, I love it, it has quality champions and some of my favorite fighters ever, but the best decades of boxing to date weren't this one. The divisions were stacked, and the 2nd and 3rd best fighters in the division were still accomplished fighters with storied careers.

 

so amir khan is becoming greater with each passing moment?

also -
so u are actually saying that they are greater, destroying the statement in the first part of your post.

also, its obvious that undisputed long term unbeaten reign champ hagler is better than wlad.

 

Marciano. He whupped that cracker..

 

Ali would have a damn good chance against all the big guys of the last 20 years! Wlad 6' 6" with a reach of 81", Joshua 6' 6" with a reach of 82". Ali 6' 3" with a reach of 79". Sure he was smaller , but not by much. I think with his movement and speed he would do very well against these bigger guys. Can't say he loses out right do to size alone.

 

you said, specifically and categorically "every fighter ...."
Therefore you MEAN EVERY FIGHTER, inclusive of every...fighter.

Assuming you DONT REALLY now mean "every fighter", next time if you dont mean something, please dont write it.

nice try wriggling out but nope you said every fighter.

u been corrected.

 

Marvin Hagler is a pound for pound All Time Great. Klitschko is not, and if he is he's barely cracking the top 100. Hagler is certainly held in higher esteem. He's always in the top 50 pound for pound ATG list. Klitschko is not.

Absolutely not. Both Duran and Leonard have wins that dwarf the best victories either Floyd or Manny has. There is no argument for having Floyd or Manny above either of those two.

The poster I quoted did that, not me. I played by the rules of the challenge he issued. But unless you think the current crop of fighters is going to produce 6 more bona-fide All Time Greats, the comparison shows an easy victory for the past eras highlighted.

That means the very oldest fighters would be the best ones, and that's not the case.