Prime years for a boxer?

[Robbie Barrett]

28-32.........

[champion4ever]

It varies. Some boxers like Bernard Hopkins are late bloomers and have extended careers because of it. Then you have some fighters like Fernando Vargas who've never had a prime and whose careers were shortened and ruined because they were cashed out in one fight. They never had the chance to fully develop and hone their skills because of it.

[Roy Keane]

If we are talking about a boxer who has started young I would say 22-27ish as they have learned the skill and are in their physical prime. Billy Joe Saunders has said he can feel the difference now he's 29-30 father time catches up with everyone. A football/soccer player summed it up best he played until his mid-late 30's and said endurance wasn't the problem he could top the bleed tests it was the small explosive steps and reaction time which killed him off not fitness.

Experience makes up the difference when fighters get into their 30's but IMO Mayweather was best in his mid 20's as was Roy and Pacman etc.

[Joe Beamish]

PEDS have extended things a bit, no doubt, but 27-32 seems right for most. Floyd, a wonderful fighter and perhaps an exception, may have looked "prime" longer, partly because he didn't take much punishment, and partly because as he went up in weight, his opponents tended to be past THEIR prime.

For the greatest fighters in the last, say, 50 years -- the guys who had career-defining wins against great competitors in their prime -- it happened in that range. Sometimes earlier. But not much later.

Ali was 32 when he beat Foreman.

Duran was 29 when he beat Leonard.

Leonard was 25 when he beat Hearns the first time, and 30 when he beat Hagler.

I'm big on "who did you beat, and how close to prime was that opponent?" It matters more to me than how old you were when you held some belt or when you retired.