Were Floyd Mayweather and Roy Jones Jr part of the same 'era' or 'generation'?

I believe they were.

It is completely unrealistic, impossible and just plain wrong to try and group fighters together who started or retired in exactly the same years, or we'd have hundreds and hundreds of 'eras' of fighters starting early 20th century that overlap ridiculously. An 'era' or 'generation' cannot be determined by one man's career, the word itself is larger and more fluid than that. An era must be a significant time period where things can generally be grouped together.

My own opinion is that RJJ's peak lasted from his 1993 fight with Hopkins til his fight with Ruiz in 2003. His only loss in this time was a DQ, so I think this is fair.

PBF won his 1st world title in 1998 and won The Ring Fighter Of The Year for that year. It is widely acknowledged that PBF was better as a super-feather and a lightweight than as a light-welterweight and a welterweight. He didn't move up to light-welterweight til 2005.

Therefore their peaks overlapped for the years 1998-2003. I think 5 years is sufficient to state with certainty that they were from the same era.

Age has nothing to do with it. There are 12 months in age between Bernard Hopkins and Mike Tyson, but Tyson's peak was in the late 1980s and Hopkins's was late 1990s/early 2000s.

 

Read my thread, not just the ****ing title, and THEN answer.

I think you are joking. I almost took the bait!

PS: What the hell has believing these 2 guys are of the same era got to do with hating?!?! It's about classifying boxers into generations for the sake of discussion and debate! Unbelievable.

 

Their peaks overlapped for at least 5 full years as stated at the start of this thread, their careers overlapped far more than that. Take age of the equation: they are from the same era.

 

OK, I thought I had explained this as well as possible but I guess I haven't. More black-and-white facts:

- RJJ's fall from grace was May '04 when he was KO'd by Antonio Tarver for his 1st legitimate career loss

- Everyone who has followed Floyd Mayweather's career agrees he was better as a super-featherweight and a lightweight than a light-welterweight or a welterweight

- He made the move from lightweight to light-welterweight in 2005
- He won super-featherweight world title and Ring Fighter Of The Year in 1998

So from 1998 til 2003-4, they were both at the heights of their powers. That's 5 or 6 years. Not 1 or 2. I cannot understand how they are not from the same era then??