Underrated Eras in Boxing

1960's - early 1970's for the smaller fighters. Ali totally dominated the media.....and home TV for a period of time just concentrated on the big boys. But in LA, (and some degree NYC), plus the rest of the world, great fights in the Welterweight Division and Below were going on.

 

You can only chalk up so much to bias at the end of the day.

There are eras where a lot of people are biased, but there is no such thing as an era where everybody is biased.

Also, said bias often did not extend to Gene Tunney, Joe Louis, or Mickey Walker.

These fighters were compared favorably to those who had gone before, by many people.

 

Well thank god I can think for myself and look at the available data and come to a conclusion since a 110 yrs of fighters have come and gone to compare it too.

Bias is real and in this case it is clear that the Jeff bias became a status quo within the esteemed boxing royalty such as Nat Fleischer have said it is so and no one was willing to contest it....I don't look at rumors, legends or here say results against competition are what matters because if listen to "experts" would tell us to ignore our own experience and not trust our eyes or knowledge and ignore the benefit of many fighters coming since to compare with.....revision only counts if it contests irrefutable historical fact not biased opinion that became a generational stalwart. The monopoly on boxing history of the few who saw Jeff and thought he was the best fit the racists narrative of the time despite the many who disputed it....without good video of Jeffries it cannot be proven or disproven all we have are results and with careful study of all the factors it was a flawed assessment.

 

I will never tell you to believe something, because a respected figure in boxing believed it, but you are being far to high handed in dismissing everything that was written at the time.

You are effectively prepared to assume that every sports writer of the time, was either biased or a racist, or both.

You tar the good and the bad alike, with the same broad strokes of the same brush.

You even mention the name of Nat Fleischer, who did more to combat racism in the sport of boxing, than any other writer in history!

 

What I have seen in over 40 yrs in this sport at every facet is the boxing community tends to jump on bandwagons and follow fighters if one influential figure will lead opinion......not until modern era with social media such as the internet resources could we as fans do our own assessment.......you had the ring magazine and others with dramatic stories and photos telling stories we could not challenge.....influential writers depend on the same people for their pieces. I know a little bit about social movement theory and at the end of the day whatever narrative the originator chooses based off personal bias controls the message.....not just racism fyi....because we have no way to see for ourselves the message can't be challenged and defending it is easy

At least with Greb as mythical as he is we can look at his record and the data contained and assess it......With Jeff his record does not match the myth. I too grew up believing he was unbeatable until I walked in a fighters shoes and a trainers shoes and IMO the biggest advantage today is social media i.e. the internet...allows me/fans to look at fighters for research and assessment. We can now after over 110 years of boxing use data to compare Jeff's fights with other heavyweight champions Bob Foster is possibly the greatest 175 champion who stepped up against a powerful and smaller heavyweight than Jeff in Frazier and we see how that went and this is the comparable data I look at that when measuring fighters against others I use.....boxing will always have tangibles and intangibles tangibles can be measured but intangibles must be proven through adversity.