It started going downhill when people began using multi coloured fonts and using all caps in the thread titles. It's never recovered.
I haven't met many fighters in person, but when I sat next to Yaqui Lopez (who must be in some HOF) back in the 80's, he smelled fine, looked showered, and his clothes were clean. I was in a record store looking at singles and Pernell Whitaker was next to me going through the racks the night before the second Ramirez fight. He looked and smelled fine. Kind of a strange question.