We've just had the third best heavyweight era in history

Again, though, you can do this with anyone's resume. There is Ali, and there is everyone else.

 

Up to a point you can, or at least with varying degrees of impact/success.

The deeper a resume runs at higher levels, the harder it is to reasonably pick holes - it's much easier to believably/reasonably pick holes in thinner resumes.

 

No Joshua-Fury and no Joshua-Wilder...that's poor by modern standards. An instant disqualifier, I'd say.

Further, what with Dubois did to Joshua, his overall standing has suffered. Wilder's 'defences'...

30s, 60s, 80s - arguments can be made they're all stronger/had more integrity.

 

Well I don't think the 1930's had better talent. And the era lacked integrity too with several fixed fights.

But the 1960's and 1980's had better talent. The 2020's has Usyk as the sure fire hall of fame member for sure and little else. The 2020's is a timeline of the hyped British heavyweights.

 

I don't know that the 60's had better talent. I mean, Ali, yeah. Liston, too, though I find him overrated, and the third best was Patterson, who was a chinny LHW. After that, Johanson, Machen, Foley, Willliams, who were all below Patterson. After that it gets flat ordinary real quick with guys like Terrell, Summerline, etc. You can make that argument based on Ali and Liston, but this era has a lot more depth.

The 80s...its hard to say how talented those guys really were, because of drugs and obesity they had 1-2 good fights, and the first half was headed up by Holmes, who never unified and never fought a #1 contender. Tyson looked like a world beater, but how did he finish?

I guess you could make the argument based on raw talent, but if we are dividing up by sharp decades, this one has a few more years yet to go before we know. We may get our Ali or Tyson. Based on good, competitive fights by talented guys--both 60s and 80s are a hard, hard "no" for me.

Just my opinion. I respect yours.

 

Well -- the 1960's had Joe Frazier. In addition to the guys you mentioned like Ali, and Liston. These are three arguably top 20 all time heavyweights. The 2020's have just one who is arguably top 20 in Usyk. Patterson is the #4 heavyweight in the decade.

The 1980's had Holmes and Tyson and they were dominant champions of the times losing a combined one match in the decade. Depth was not the problem in the 80's, drugs were.

It is nice that differing opinions as respected as they are often attacked.