Was the 1980's the Greatest Boxing Era?

Post war 40s from feather to light heavy gets my vote.:good
There were fighters around at that time who didn't get a sniff of the title including the man mentioned above, Charley Burley.
Lloyd Marshall also could have won the middleweight title then and at any other time.
The 70s was the heavyweights most exciting era.

 

Old thread but wading in anyway.

I watched boxing throughout the '90s and it seems better in retrospect than it was at the time. The avoidance of the best fighting the best because the alphabet organisations made it virtually impossible for those fights to take place was the worst aspect of it. The advent of PPV in place of terrestrial TV really hurt the sports popularity with mainstream too. I'd say boxing becoming the minority sport it is today started in that era.

The last great era of boxing was the 1980s. Was it the greatest of all? I think the 1940s and 50s have an equally strong case and the 1930s seemed pretty great too.

 

The best era in boxing, if you average it out across the weight classes, was probably the 1920s!

 

The 80's were insane particularly the first half. Then we had Tyson exploding later.

 

In terms of glitz and glamour the 80s was pretty awesome. Boxing was big show business. You an uncommon # of great legendary fighters around the same weight classes willing to face each other {Fab 4}. Mike Tyson also was a once in a generation type of exciting, spectacular performer.

You can make a case for the 80s but I think in a pure boxing sense the 1930s and especially the 1940s boxing peaked. Pre Television when the fighters learned their trade in a more thorough way. Sugar Ray was fighting once or twice a month, Joe Louis was still the heavyweight champion, Zale and Graziano were beating the hell out of each other. Willie Pep was an absolute magician in the ring fighting quite often. Just the lightweight division alone in the `40s was off the charts. Ike Williams facing fighters like Jack, Montgomery multiple times. When PBF first came on the seen in the late 90s Eddie Futch made the comment about seeing him do things defensively that he hadn't seen since the great boxers on the `30s and `40s.

The 40s cant be topped in my view.

 

Nice post. I'm with you on this. The '40s had great fighters and great rivalries. There were negatives though. The mob ruled the game and influenced the outcome of the fights, many of the world titles were frozen because of WW2 and black fighters were systematically denied opportunities in spite of their talents. But, just on the level of fights and fighters, it seems like it was a great period for boxing.

 

Wasn't there more boxers in New York alone in the 20's than there is in the entire world today ?

 

Just fell over this - and find it strange no one commented on such an interesting question.

So does anyone know, if this could be true?

 

...and Chavez took much more punishment than Duran.

You act like it was one sided. Taylor was ahead on points.

 

Galindez v. Conteh seems like it should have happened, especially since people were used to the LHW title being unified under Fosters long reign and these to had rather long alphabet reigns.

Saad v. Galindez as a unification wasn't really on the table because Saads reign started just as Galindez regained his title against Foreman, then quickly lost it.

 

I've no idea either but would love to know if that was true. Any historians in the house who can verify?

 

I think this idea stems from an interview with Mike Silver ("The Arc of Boxing"), in which he states:

"In the 1920s there were more professional fighters licensed in New York City than there are licensed in the entire world today."

http://www.doghouseboxing.com/DHB/Tyler012010.htm