Era Misconceptions

[Obama]

I can't say I agree with the 80's being a golden era for heavyweights.

Holmes and Tyson were the dominant champions, both great fighters, but aside from them the talent around was severely lacking, or I'd rather say the dedication since men such as Witherspoon, Thomas, Dokes, Page, Tubbs and others were all talented but wasted their potential one way or another (mostly drugs).

I'd say that Holyfield and Foreman were 1990's heavyweights, since that's when they made their impact on the division. Qawi, Spinks, Cooney and Berbick hardly qualify as A-list heavyweights in my opinion.

Spinks was an undefeated Ring Heavyweight Champion until Tyson.
Qawi was the best CW of all time next to Holyfield.
Cooney was undefeated and just destroyed 3 B level fighters in a row all with high name recognition before Holmes.
I'd say you could legitimately argue Berbick not being A-, but the rest definitely are at LEAST that.

As for Witherspoon, Don King is the leading cause for his career not living up to expectations. Well, that and getting robbed against Larry Holmes, and consequently never getting his well deserved rematch. I consider Witherspoon a top 30 All Time Heavyweight

[Spartacus Sully]

1890-1900?

not sure but:

corbett
sullivan
jeffries
sharkey
fitzgibons
jackson any others?

maybe 1900- 1910?

[Obama]

Whatever era you want to call Dempsey, Wills, Langford, Jeannette, McVea, and Fulton is cleary the most top heavy era to ever have existed. Problem was Dempsey only fought Fulton.

[TheGreatA]

Spinks was an undefeated Ring Heavyweight Champion until Tyson.
Qawi was the best CW of all time next to Holyfield.
Cooney was undefeated and just destroyed 3 B level fighters in a row all with high name recognition before Holmes.
I'd say you could legitimately argue Berbick not being A-, but the rest definitely are at LEAST that.

As for Witherspoon, Don King is the leading cause for his career not living up to expectations. Well, that and getting robbed against Larry Holmes, and consequently never getting his well deserved rematch. I consider Witherspoon a top 30 All Time Heavyweight

Spinks did have those two wins over Holmes (both were somewhat controversial especially the latter) but aside from that he didn't do much at heavyweight other than beat a seemingly unmotivated Cooney.

Qawi was a great light heavyweight but I wouldn't consider him the number 2 at cruiserweight. He never had much of a heavyweight career.

Cooney was a great prospect but in the end he didn't accomplish all that much. Norton, Young and Lyle were pretty much done by the time Cooney got to them and he never fought against the likes of Weaver, Coetzee, Dokes, Witherspoon and others.

I agree about Witherspoon and I rate him rather highly. He was possibly the third best heavyweight behind Tyson and Holmes during the 80's.

[Kinetic Linking]

Here are the eras, not in order of strength -
1900-1910
1910-1920
20-30
30-40
40-50
50-60
60-70
70-80
80-90
90-2000
2000-2010


There's only 10 or 11, and a handful of championship fights will give you a clear enough picture of the strength of the era.

I'll just say this, if you leave out all the eras from pre 1950, or even pre 1930, for all weight classes, your answer is going to be wrong. There are some obvious peaks early in the century for various weight classes. You may know a lot about the past 30 years, but history didn't start 30 years ago so get a clue.

Oh yeah, and I'm beginning the eras roughly when video started being used, which isn't fair but it's the best you can do.

[Kinetic Linking]

There are multiple peaks, of course, and it's probably best to identify them all before comparing them. I'm going to use single fights to identify eras, but only because I consider the fights to be fairly representative of the era. Obviously they're some of the best fights, but I won't throw some fluke fight where one guy is just cleaning out a division. Again, when I say "peak" I don't mean all time, I just mean "one of a number of high points in history."

Hagler Hearns is an obvious peak. Both those guys are better conditioned, among other things, than most middleweights in history.

Ali Foreman is an obvious peak. Say what you want about that fight, but two great heavyweights showed up to fight.

Dempsey Tunney is a peak for 180-190 pounders, that fight takes place at a higher speed than most fights in history and the game died to a great extent when both guys retired

Greb probably had a peak middleweight fight but there's no footage

[Obama]

Spinks did have those two wins over Holmes (both were somewhat controversial especially the latter) but aside from that he didn't do much at heavyweight other than beat a seemingly unmotivated Cooney.

Qawi was a great light heavyweight but I wouldn't consider him the number 2 at cruiserweight. He never had much of a heavyweight career.

Cooney was a great prospect but in the end he didn't accomplish all that much. Norton, Young and Lyle were pretty much done by the time Cooney got to them and he never fought against the likes of Weaver, Coetzee, Dokes, Witherspoon and others.

I agree about Witherspoon and I rate him rather highly. He was possibly the third best heavyweight behind Tyson and Holmes during the 80's.

I don't see how your points keep them from being semi-elite fighters. They were CLEARLY above the B level competition. But, whatever.

Now I want to know who your top 5 CWs are.

[TheGreatA]

I don't see how your points keep them from being semi-elite fighters. They were CLEARLY above the B level competition. But, whatever.

Now I want to know who your top 5 CWs are.

My argument is that Spinks and Qawi were A-class light heavyweights but only B at heavyweight, especially Qawi who never found any success there. Cooney in my opinion never proved himself to be A-class.

Qawi's cruiserweight resume is not all that great. He only had wins over Piet Crous, Lee Roy Murphy and Leon Spinks at that weight as well as the great effort against Holyfield the first time. He was beaten twice by Holyfield, once by Ossie Ocasio as well as Robert Daniels.

Carlos DeLeon is in my opinion the number 2 at that weight. Other good cruiserweights were Johnny Nelson, David Haye, JC Gomez, Juan Marc Mormeck, O'Neil Bell, Tomasz Adamek, Vassiliy Jirov, Al Cole, Anaclet Wamba and Qawi rates somewhere among them.

[Jim Jeffries]

ROFL at Gerry Cooney being an A/A- level fighter. Sparked by Michael fricken Spinks at the prime age of 30 is about all you need to know. Hyped beyond belief after a few wins over some corpses for the Holmes matchup and never did anything of note, ever again.

[Obama]

My argument is that Spinks and Qawi were A-class light heavyweights but only B at heavyweight, especially Qawi who never found any success there. Cooney in my opinion never proved himself to be A-class.

Qawi's cruiserweight resume is not all that great. He only had wins over Piet Crous, Lee Roy Murphy and Leon Spinks at that weight as well as the great effort against Holyfield the first time. He was beaten twice by Holyfield, once by Ossie Ocasio as well as Robert Daniels.

Carlos DeLeon is in my opinion the number 2 at that weight. Other good cruiserweights were Johnny Nelson, David Haye, JC Gomez, Juan Marc Mormeck, O'Neil Bell, Tomasz Adamek, Vassiliy Jirov, Al Cole, Anaclet Wamba and Qawi rates somewhere among them.

Sigh, stop paying attention to fights a guy has after he's over the hill. Anything after the first Holyfield fight is meaningless. And resume isn't everything, CW division simply didn't have much talent. Qawi is clearly above all the guys you mentioned there aside from DeLeon. James Toney was a better CW than damn near all of those guys. I think you're just basing your list on record / time spent in the division.

ROFL at Gerry Cooney being an A/A- level fighter. Sparked by Michael fricken Spinks at the prime age of 30 is about all you need to know. Hyped beyond belief after a few wins over some corpses for the Holmes matchup and never did anything of note, ever again.

Uh, anything Cooney did post Holmes is irrelevant. His prime ended there and then. At the TIME however, he was clearly an A- fighter. You're undefeated and destroy 3 B level guys back to back to back, then lose to a top 5 ATG Heavyweight, and somehow you're not even A-? Come now.