Was the 20s the golden era of boxing talent?

The 20s was strong for the 175lbers, but IMO the goldern era of the division was the late 70s/early 80s.... Spinks; Qawi; Muhammed's (Eddie and Matt); Johnson; Conteh; Rossman; Galindez and Parlov....

 

The heavyweight division in the 1920's was nothing short of horrible. During the first half you have a champion who sits on his throne for a full three 3 years while at the same time ducking the #1 contender for more than half the decade. Then when Dempsey's beaten after that, Tunney retires and there's no one to really follow up. Schmeling wins the championship on a low blow and fights are being banned because there were thoughts of fixes and there is no championship fight for another 2 years. It was so bad that lightheavyweights made up a good portion of the heavyweight contenders.

Glad i wasn't around during that time.

 

Well it could be worse... this decade we have not had a World Championship fight at Heavyweight for FIVE years!

 

Yeah, though that is not because the champion is ducking a #1 clearcut contender, but because there is no declaration on what is a fight for the new linear champion. Klitschko vs Ibragimov, Valuev vs Chagaev, Klitschko vs Peter; they could all have been for the real championship like Moore vs Patterson or Burns vs Hart, Sharkey vs Schmeling.

 

Was Willis really clear cut between 1923-26? He had seen much better days by then.....

 

Yes he was. He was basically undefeated from 1916 to 1926. That's eleven years!! He suffered two losses in between, but they were kind of fluke-ish and both avenged several times. A tremendous accomplishment, if you consider he didn't avoid anyone (unlike Dempsey who wanted no part of Langford, outside of Wills), had something like 60 fights during that period and the wrong skin color.

 

He did avoid one, george Godfrey who offered to fight him for free, and harry wills takes the whole purse regardless of outcome. But I agree with your consensous on wills.

 

But still Willis was not the same fighter in the 20's that he was in the mid teens of the 20th century, he was kind of going though the motions by 23, knowing he was not going to get his deserved Dempsey fight.

 

1895-05 had: Joe Gans, Jack Blackburn, Dave Holly, Young Griffo, George Lavigne, Battling Nelson, Jimmy Britt, Frank Erne, and I suppose you can add Terry McGovern, Joe Walcott & Packey McFarland as well

19020's had: Benny Leonard, Tony Canzoneri, Jimmy McLarnin, Jackie Kid Berg, Billy Petrolle, Lew Tendler, Johnny Dundee, Willie Ritchie, Rocky Kansas, Ritchie Mitchell, Pinky Mitchell, Ray Miller, Justo Suarez, Kid Kaplan

1940's had: Ike Williams, Bob Montgomery, Beau Jack, Sammy Angott, Willie Joyce, Lew Jenkins, Enrique Bolanos, Tippy Larkin, Freddie Dawson, Slugger White

I suppose you could argue the 1895-05 period, especially given that a lot of records during that time are incomplete and don't give full credit to the fighters of the time, but I don't think you can CLEARLY make a determination of it.

Personally, I'm inclined to say the 20's, but not with a hell of a lot of confidence

 

I'd say the 20's as well, a bit more confidently. Obviously on quantity they have it, but they also have two guys who make my P4P top 20, whereas Gans is the only one in either of the other two periods in my top 20 otherwise.

 

You omitted Philadelphia Jack O'Brien, who was considered first-rater at lightweight for some time. Then there are McFadden, McPartland, Hawkins, Spike Sullivan, (Wilmington) Daly, Dobbs, Ziegler, Young Peter Jackson, Parker, Willie Fitzgerald, Harry Lewis, probably missing a few names. But the point is if you want to include second-tier boxers as well, both on quality and on quantity 1895-1905 will beat 1920's without much problem.

 

Well, there's quite a few second tier fighters from the 20's that are on the level of some of these guys that I didn't name either, not to mention first tier guys like Sammy Mandell.

In any case, I just don't see how you can clearly dileneate the talent from 1895-05 from 1920-30 and say that the former were clearly better. Based on what exactly?

 

First tell me, based on what did you include McLarnin, Berg, Ritchie (do you want me to include Jack McAuliffe too? not to mention Ritchie was over lightweight limit), both Mitchells, Suarez? Lightweight limit, 1920-1930

 

McLarnin = beat Sid Terris, and had a fight with Sammy Mandell that he lost.
Kid Berg = beat Kid Chocolate, Tony Canzoneri drew with Billy Petrolle
Ritchie = nothing
P.Mitchell = fought Tendler and lost, had a NC with Kansas and beat Patsy Kline
R.Mitchell = almost knocked Benny Leonard out but lost. Also lost to Lew Tendler and Rocky Kansas
Justo Suarez = won the Argentine lightweight title

I suppose if we are to be accurate about weights and dates, we should take Packey McFarland out becasue he was over the lightweight limit against Britt, and we should discard the first pre-arranged 'loss' of Walcott's to Lavigne because Walcott weighed 136 pounds and and he got KO'ed in his second fight with Lavigne where he actually made weight so it should show that he did nothing significant as a lightweight.

I'm comfortable taking out the Mitchells, Ritchie and Suarez if McFarland and Walcott are omitted from the 1895-05 list. :good

Now, back to my question....