Rate this overall era.

Very Weak .

Especially since there is a limited amount of great boxers and great trainers

 

Fairly meh. You have a few divisions with real depth, some that had been weak for a long time and have begun turnarounds and shown opportunity for growth into a hotbed of young talent (here's looking @ you, Cruiser) but I'd say about half are badly front-loaded, with a solid top 5 or so and then a major dip in quality after that.

 

I think the heavier weights have lost a lot of talent to other sports, especially in America. It isn't a golden era but pretty good overall.

 

The talent pool of 200 pound and up big men is as deep or deeper than its ever been. The sport is more truly global than ever.

The Cruiserweight division poaches a significant number of talented fighters who would be world rated heavyweights in earlier eras, including the vaunted "golden age" of the 70's, which was remarkably shallow overall. It benefited from familiar names and lack of globalization.

It is necessary to dismiss the Heavyweight division because it is standard operating procedure for the time. Fans were even booing multiple times at the "Fight of the Century". Every single heavyweight era was bashed at the time as being bad by notable writers and/or past fighters.

 

SH-TTY.. Fighters are more concerned with being a star rather than fighting the best.

 

It's extremely weak. I hate Ward but he's the only guy who's been tested with big wins over Froch and Kessler.

Kovalev and GGG have talent but how good are they? They need to fight Ward.

You see as recent as the mid 2000s the best fought the best. Not for money but for pride.

 

I agree. It was bigger than vanity back in the day.

 

There is so alright depth. But the sport is about as low top heavy wise as possibly ever.

Ward is the only relatively young fighter who's taken on some big challenges and won.

 

:deal

 

They are almost as good as in former eras. I think what is missing is the level of competition, the best not routinely fighting the best, and low numbers of fights per year leading to less experience overall. If they were a little more active they'd be just as good. I think that the money has made the sport better for boxers and worse for fans, and the record padding to avoid a potential loss robs us of good fights and cuts back on the more aggressive crowd pleasing styles.

 

I can see that. Today we have a solid top 5 but back in the day there was more depth and we'd have a solid top 10 in each division. So even if the top 5 are as good as they were, there aren't as many guys for them to match up well with.

 

Pretty good

 

Being a star is what they cared about back in the day also, it's just that then it was pretty much a requirement you had to fight the best to be a star. Nowadays, they've figured as long as you fight competitive looking fights on paper at around the top and keep winning then that's all it takes to be a star.

 

its good but it could be a hell of a lot better , too many of the top boys ducking each other and too much inactivity as well . the sport needs a stronger governing body .

 

Ok so the flipside to that argument is exactly that. You dont have the footage either so you cant say they werent. Im so tired of this dumb@ss argument. You mean to tell me that Joe louis or Ray Robinson couldnt compete against todays fighters? gtfoh! Those guys would be dominant in any era they fought in. Its like saying Ted Williams couldnt possibly be as good if he played in todays game. Baseball and boxing are timeless and thats the beauty of both sports.
People say fighters are bigger and stronger today but thats moronic. boxing has weight classes. Now unless scales have changed in the last hundred years a ww is going to be 147lbs in 2015 just like he was in 1925. Robinson was as big as GGG ffsatsch