According to at least one BoxingScene commenter, we are presently in the midst of the “worst heavyweight era ever.” Not all opinions are good ones, of course, and brief recourse to a history book – and to the series of heavyweight main events to which we’ve been treated over the past five years – should be sufficient to disabuse anyone of that particular viewpoint.
It is often the case that observers of any given boxing era are quick – too quick, in many cases – to either dismiss it as “the worst ever” or “the best ever” without actually bothering to think seriously about how it truly compares. It is of course possible for a fight, or a fighter or an era, to be good – or even extremely good, or bad, or even extremely bad, without necessarily being the best or the worst.
So how good – or bad – of a heavyweight era are we actually in? There have been 14 full decades of heavyweight boxing under the Marquess of Queensberry rules, most of which have seen great champions and/or great fights, some of which have left their imprint in boxing history and some of which have been largely forgotten.
Considering such variables as the greatness of its champions, the depth of its challengers, the number of meaningful matchups and its historical and societal significance, here is one person’s informal and unofficial ranking of the best decades in heavyweight boxing history.
The first decade to see the heavyweight championship change hands, when James Corbett defeated John L. Sullivan to become “the man who beat the man.”
This was modern boxing in its infancy, with rules still being refined and the fights themselves fairly crude affairs. The sport was also poorly governed, even by today’s standards, as evidenced by the day Wyatt Earp was drafted in to referee what may or may not have been a title fight.
Heavyweight boxing was still feeling its way as the 20th century dawned. The decade – and century – began with James Jeffries as champion, a position he would hold until 1905. After Marvin Hart and Tommy Burns took their turns, the championship was seized by one of the sport’s most iconic and consequential figures: Jack Johnson.
Following Lennox Lewis’ retirement in 2004, the first decade of the 21st century saw various versions of the title claimed by the likes of Chris Byrd, John Ruiz, Ruslan Chagaev and Samuel Peter. A high point was Roy Jones Jnr moving up from light heavyweight to take a belt from Ruiz.
Otherwise notable for the rise of the Klitschko brothers, and particularly of Wladimir establishing himself as the top dog after a couple of stunning reversals. There were some fine fighters but little to write home about in a largely forgettable decade.
That Primo Carnera held the title from June 1933 to June 1934 says everything about the boxing world of the 1930s. The giant Carnera wasn’t quite as hapless in the ring as has sometimes been conveyed, but his rise to prominence was almost certainly aided by the mob.
The names of some of the era’s champions and challengers continue to resonate, however, with James Braddock’s defeat of Max Baer, for example, immortalized on celluloid and in print.
But the two biggest fights of the decade were surely the clashes between Joe Louis and Max Schmeling; Louis’ rematch win over the German in 1938 was an early example of the heavyweight championship being seen as a proxy for broader social and geopolitical issues.
One decade, one champion: Louis reigned supreme for the entirety of the 1940s. The decade began with a series of title defenses against what was dubbed his “Bum of the Month” club, although, to be fair, several of his challengers were legitimate top 10 contenders.
However, while Louis was a first-rate champion and his reign included a pair of defenses against both Billy Conn and Jersey Joe Walcott, it was a largely uneventful decade in the division, not least because of the interruption caused when Louis and others served in uniform during World War II.
Perhaps the most maligned decade in heavyweight boxing, and in many ways, it deserves its poor reputation. This was the decade of the Lost Generation, talented boxers who showed little aptitude for training and who passed alphabet titles to each other like hot potatoes. This was the era also in which Don King actively fractured the championship into multiple, competing belts. But the decade was bookended by the reigns of two greats: Larry Holmes and Mike Tyson. It included Holmes’ massively hyped contest with Gerry Cooney and the entirety of Tyson’s first reign, including his career-best first-round knockout of Michael Spinks.
The decade that saw the rise of a new generation of top heavyweights. Deontay Wilder married sub-elite skills with superhuman power in his right hand; Tyson Fury showed the kind of skill and movement not normally associated with such a big man; and for a while Anthony Joshua, winner of a gold medal at the 2012 Olympics, looked like he might be the best of the lot.
Also notable for Joshua’s win over Klitschko in front of 90,000 at London’s Wembley Stadium and for Fury’s impression of the WWE’s Undertaker in his first fight with Wilder, the 2010s mostly set all the pieces in place for the following decade.
The first half of this decade was dominated by Johnson, even though he made only a half-dozen or so defenses between winning the title in 1908 and losing it to Jess Willard in 1915. Johnson was a huge figure in and out of the ring; large swaths of White America were so outraged by the notion of a Black heavyweight champion that former champ Jim Jeffries came out of retirement to challenge him and prove, in his own words, that “a White man is better than a Negro.” He failed, Johnson stopping him in the 15th round.
Johnson eventually surrendered his title to Jess Willard, who held it from 1915 until he was knocked out by Jack Dempsey.
Boxing had shown intermittent popularity and notoriety before the 1920s, but Dempsey was the one who helped push it to a new level. His 1921 defense against Georges Carpentier yielded the sport’s first million-dollar gate, his 1927 rematch with Gene Tunney was the first gate to top $2 million, and the first Tunney fight took place in front of more than 120,000 spectators.
Tunney took the title from Dempsey and held on to it until 1929, at the end of a decade that, with the likes of the multi-knockdown slobberknocker between Dempsey and Luis Firpo and the “Long Count Fight” between Dempsey and Tunney, offered some of the most famous action in boxing history.
This decade might have ranked higher had Dempsey not gone three years without defending his crown from 1923 to 1926 or had he been permitted to defend against African-American Harry Wills.
The decade that turned the Boomer Generation on to boxing. The heavyweight division’s glamor boy was unquestionably Rocky Marciano, who held the title from 1952 until retiring undefeated in 1956.
He was preceded by fellow future Hall of Famers (and future opponents) Ezzard Charles and Jersey Joe Walcott and succeeded by fellow future Hall of Famer Floyd Patterson, who surrendered the title to Ingemar Johansson in 1959 before regaining it in 1960.
This decade isn’t even halfway through, but already it’s seen enough talent and excitement to place it near the top. The second and third bouts of the Fury-Wilder trilogy are the standouts so far, but we’ve seen Wilder’s string of violent knockouts and the rise of Oleksandr Usyk, who has established himself as the best of his generation. Although the depth of talent is not as great as it was in the 1970s, the top tier has been consistently strong, and with the likes of Daniel Dubois and Moises Itauma on the horizon, this decade may have a lot more up its sleeve yet.
This was the decade of two legendary champions: the brooding badass that was Sonny Liston and the man who relieved him of his crown, the incomparable Muhammad Ali.
Ali began the decade winning Olympic gold and ended it in enforced exile. In between, he twice defeated Liston – who twice poleaxed Patterson to become a seemingly unbeatable champion – in controversial fashion, joined the Nation of Islam and changed his name from Cassius Clay, refused induction to the armed forces on moral grounds and dominated the likes of Cleveland Williams, Ernie Terrell and Zora Folley before shamefully being exiled from boxing.
In his enforced absence, the crown settled on the head of yet another all-time great in Joe Frazier.
When the dust settled, Lennox Lewis reigned supreme, but this decade brought so much more: the second act of Mike Tyson, the prime of Evander Holyfield, the brief burst of light that was Riddick Bowe, the improbable comeback of George Foreman, the Bite Fight, Fan Man, the Riot at the Garden, “It happened!” “Mike Tyson has been knocked out,” and on and on.
The undisputed king. So much happened in this decade that its early years feel a world apart from its close. Joe Frazier beat Muhammad Ali, who in turn later beat Frazier. Down went Frazier as George Foreman became champion, only to lose his crown to Ali. The Fight of the Century, the Rumble in the Jungle, and the Thrilla in Manila are enough to elevate this decade by itself, but it is also the depth of talent in the division – the supporting cast of Jimmy Ellis, Jerry Quarry, Ken Norton, Ron Lyle, Earnie Shavers, Joe Bugner, Oscar Bonavena and so many more – that helps separate the 1970s from the rest.
Kieran Mulvaney has written, broadcast and podcasted about boxing for HBO, Showtime, ESPN and Reuters, among other outlets. He presently co-hosts the Fighter Health Podcast with Dr. Margaret Goodman. He also writes regularly for National Geographic, has written several books on the Arctic and Antarctic, and is at his happiest hanging out with wild polar bears. His website is www.kieranmulvaney.com.
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