What made the 70's so special?

Ali revived it more than anything else. Live televised network boxing had a rough time recovering from the disaster of Griffith-Paret III until Muhammad's return from exile started turning things around. He had help with some terrific heavyweight opposition which wasn't available to go against during his first reign. Ali-Wepner begat Stallone and the Rocky franchise, then the stunning success of the US Olympic Squad in Montreal carried the momentum further forward.

Prior to the professional ascension of the Olympians, Danny Lopez held down the fort in the United States for the lower weight classes with his exciting title defenses. Alfredo Escalera had some of his WBC wins televised, establishing a villainous reputation with his "Snake Man" persona which proved the perfect foil for Arguello's heroic entrance into the ranks at 130. (Bayamon was Alex's live television debut for most viewers in the States, and he was never out of the spotlight after that.) Duran also hit the mainstream, Monzon as well.

Howard Cosell, as controversial as he was, generated tremendous interest for the sport.

 

Max Merritt and The Meteors

 

Dude, the 70s didn't need ali, boxing never needed ali, the'yre were other great boxers, ali was one of em, but, he was as much bull**** as he was talent, the elvis or mike jackson of boxing, so many gift decicians to keep his loadmouth racist draftdodging ass going. I loved watching him box, but ,, man, boxing would be fine without him. And Quarry, Young, Norten, Shavers, lyle, Duran, little red, and the rest of them would be great in any decade.

 

Young, Lyle and Shavers weren't even "great" in the decade they were in.

 

:good

better beer, cheaper beer, sex w/out death, qualudes, 74-76 Philadelpia Flyers, The Big Red Machine, Tom Brookshire, Oakland Raiders, LED ZEPPELIN, LED ZEPPELIN, LED ZEPPELIN, Bad Bennie Briscoe, Franklin, Hart, Everett et al at the Philadelphia Spectrum, sensurround, Billy Jack, Hudy DeLight, Pabst Blue Ribbon, O.J. Simpson and the great Tyler Rose Earl Campbell, fight night at the Olympic when Cuevas or the great bantams or feathers were in town, defenses by the wild animal from Panama IN Panama. A.J. Foyt and King Richard. LED ZEPPELIN. "Abbey Road", "Dark Side of The Moon", Boston, Ted Nugent PAM GRIER, PAM GREIR, PAM GREIR WHILE LISTENING TO LED ZEPPELIN AND DRINKING HUDY DELIGHT AFTER TAKING A QUALUDE, no cable or ESPN. Fights on Friday nights instead of Saturday. Baseball playoffs and World Series during the day. Disco Sucks, Farrah Fawcett's nipples, Jerry Quarry was a great announcer. The lady who took her top off in the Superdome inbetween the Lopez-Malvarez and Galindez-Rossman fight. Who is this Monzon guy and where did he come from? The 70's were it. LED FOR THE HEAD AND LONG LIVE KEITH MOON AND THE 11 ON DEC 3 1979 in Cincinnati. :rasta

 

color television, ali yelling something about black satellites, foreman's afro, jerry quarry being underrated, good drugs, vietnam being a joke, etc etc

 

This.

Alternatively, the mid-70's heavies might have been vastly superior to their successors in the 90's, depending on how highly you rate Holmes and Foreman in their comeback attempts.

Arguments could be made either way. I've never entirely decided which version I lean toward.

 

I do like the fact that a) all the big match-ups were made with the exception of Frazier-Norton and b) the fighters seemed to play to the larger stage... at least the American heavies.

The 90's were pretty awesome in retrospect. There were some great fights and the excitement was palpable... or maybe I was just coming of age at the time.

 

Because at the time you could match up any combination of Ali, Foreman, Frazier, Norton, Holmes, Shavers, Lyle, Young, Bugner, Quarry etc and get an interesting fight. There was not too much separating these guys, which is what made it interesting. It wasn't all about Ali, it was about the fact that there were numerous guys capable of beating him, and sometimes did. With a little less biased officiating, we'd be remembering the 70's as even more special.

 

muhammad Allllliii

 

Nah, we'd remember it like the 30's with the title changing hands all the time and everyone being called mediocre as a result.

 

Both Marco Antonio Barrera and Winona Ryder were born.

 

The 90s had some brutally hard-hitting heavyweight fights - the Bowe-Holyfield trilogy, the Bowe-Golota matches, the Tyson-Ruddock fights, and Tua-Ibeaubuchi ....... but the quality of some of the fighters have become even more overrated than those of the 70s.
And the 90s had an alphabet mess on top.

The 90s had some of the most farcical episodes in HW history too : Tyson-Seldon, Lewis-McCall 2, Tyson-Holyfield 2, Lewis-Akinwande : all of which happened within a year of each other in the mid-90s.
Fat Foreman wins the title.
Oliver McCall wins a title - Frank Bruno wins a title.

Tyson was past his best the whole decade, getting by on reputation any time after '91.
Holyfield was past his best, quite severely, for much of the decade, only reviving himself by virtue of winning over a bully Tyson who no longer had stomach for real fights.
Lennox Lewis looked quite promising then lost to the mediocre sparring partner McCall, and only came to the fore almost by default when Holyfield, Tyson and Bowe were no longer viable.

Names like Tommy Morrison, Michael Moorer, Ray Mercer, Oliver McCall, Golota, Frans Botha simply conjure up images of drug abuse and/or overweightness and mental weakness.

The 90s heavyweights sucked a bit, in truth.

 

Ken Norton and Jimmy Young could well have been belt holders in more recent years. Ron Lyle,Earnie Shavers and Jerry Quarry were pretty useful too.

 

I disagree that Ali was in physical decline from 1971 onwards,Seamus. Although he never quite got back to his 1967 best,he did make up SOME lost ground. He was better in '74 than in '71,imo. After that he started an irreversable decline though. A little bit between '74 and '75,then signifigantly so in the years after that.