The Heavyweight Division Of The 1990s… How Should It Be Named?

By Janne Romppainen

02.08 - A consensus opinion of this moment is that the heavyweight division is in crisis. Lennox Lewis, Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield are still at the top-10 even though they are in their forties or at least fast approaching them. Besides them the top of the division is filled with lost potentials who once looked promising but never really delivered. Even the fighters that are considered to be the most promising contenders of the moment, Chris Byrd, Vitaly Klitschko and Kirk Johnson all are over thirty years old. There are some potential up-and-comers such as Joe Mesi and Dominick Guinn, but none of them has made a breakthrough and they all have lots of work to be done if they want to take over in the division.

There has been a habit of naming the different decades and time periods of the heavyweight division and usually the experts naming them are quite unanimous about how the division has been. The 1970s is commonly known as the “Golden Era of the heavyweights”, The early 1930s is remembered as the “Era Of The Cheese Champions” and the 1980s was the decade of the lost hopefuls and paper champions.

One decade which is yet to be named is the 1990s. In fact, there is no kind of consensus about whether the time period was good or bad in heavyweight. The ones who see the class as half-full point out that we had three fighters who all became all-time greats in Tyson, Holyfield and Lewis, there was Riddick Bowe and his glorious series against Holyfield and many other memorable moments. The other part who see the class as half empty say that the division was in a sad state already with inept champions such as Francois Botha, Bruce Seldon, Frank Bruno and the 45-year-old George Foreman. But which side is correct? Was the 1990s a good era for heavyweight boxing or not and why is so questionabl?

As all boxing fans certainly remember, the decade started with the greatest upset of the boxing history as a journeyman fighter from the 1980s, James Buster Douglas knocked out the invincible Mike Tyson in February 1990. Back then the best men of the division were familiar names from the last decade, Tim Witherspoon, Tony Tucker, Michael Dokes, Alex Steward and Donovan Ruddock among them. Douglas’ reign as the champion turned out to be a short one as he was knocked out later that year by Evander Holyfield, the former undisputed cruiserweight champion. Tyson fought two fine battles against Ruddock, and the young guns of the division, Olympic medallists Riddick Bowe and Lennox Lewis were fast approaching the top.

The first big change of the of the decade became when Mike Tyson was sentenced to prison for three years. He was scheduled to face Holyfield in the richest fight of the history but the plans fell through and instead Holyfield defended his title against two dangerous veterans, George Foreman and Larry Holmes and also Bert Cooper. The division was now filled with good, promising fighters and to solve out the best of the group, a four-man tournament was made. Holyfield defended his title against Bowe, while Lewis fought Ruddock for the next bid for the title. Ruddock, the oldest one of the group, was the favourite to win the tournament. Instead, he was easily stretched in two rounds against Lewis while Bowe defeated Holyfield on points in a great battle in 1992. After these encounters Lewis defeated the old, fringe contenders Frank Bruno and Tony Tucker while Bowe went on to crush veterans Michael Dokes and Jesse Ferguson before losing his title back to Holyfield.

At this point, it was clear evident that the new generation had taken over the old one, which usually is a good indication of the good state of the particular division. Outside the top cream, another group of talents was fast approaching. The Olympic gold medallist, Ray Mercer knocked out the European champion Fransesco Damiani to become a WBO title holder, the former great light-heavyweight champ Michael Moorer knocked out Bert Cooper for the same title and a bit later The Great White Hope Tommy Morrison outpointed George Foreman again for the same crown. Early in the year of 1994 the whole division was at the hands of the young, talented fighters. Then the thunder struck.

It all started normally when Moorer became the titlist by defeating Evander Holyfield on points. Later in that year, he lost his title in his first defence against the 45-year-old George Foreman via knockout. At the meantime, Lennox Lewis lost his title by knockout to a seasoned Oliver McCall who was seen merely as a little more than a journeyman fighter. Riddick Bowe was out of the picture, fighting less-known fighters and Tommy Morrison was iced in one round against Michael Bennet, who in turn lost his first defence against a British Herbie Hide. Inside a year the whole division had gone upside down.

The things continued to go more complicated next year. Foreman defended his crown against a little-known German fighter Axel Schultz and won a very questionable decision. Foreman was stripped of his title and the IBF-belt went to Francois Botha who defeated Schultz. The WBA-title was given to Bruce Seldon who defeated the veteran Tony Tucker. Oliver McCall defended his new WBA crown by narrowly outpointing the veteran Larry Holmes before losing it to the one-time contender Frank Bruno. Riddick Bowe knocked out Herbie Hide and was seen as one of the best fighters of the division but he wasn’t included in really big bouts. Holyfield made a sort of a comeback by defeating Ray Mercer who had waited for his opportunity for the first half of the decade. Lewis and Moorer were both come-backing slowly.

The late year of 1995 solved things out quite a much. Mike Tyson had made his comeback after his release from the prison and he was immediately seen as one of the best in the division. Riddick Bowe knocked out Holyfield in their rubber match and Lennox Lewis knocked out Tommy Morrison to become the third big name of the division. The situation of the moment certainly was one of the weirdest in the history of the division while there were three big names in Tyson, Bowe and Lewis but the three champions all were one of the poorest, Botha, Bruno and Seldon.

In the year 1996, Tyson lifted the WBC-title by easily knocking out Bruno and later in the same year he also took the WBA-crown from Seldon but in doing that the WBC-title was vacated. The IBF-title went to Michael Moorer as he outpointed Axel Schultz. At this point, the best fighters of the division were all seasoned but crafty fighters but a new generation of prospects was already to be seen. Shannon Briggs was the most highly-touted of the group that also included David Tua, Chris Byrd, Henry Akinwande, John Ruiz, Michael Grant and Andrew Golota among others. The first of them that made a breakthrough was Golota, who pummelled Riddick Bowe twice in 1996 only to lose both fights on disqualifications. The year 1996 ended in a big surprise as Evander Holyfield made another comeback, stopping Mike Tyson and taking his title. Michael Moorer defended his crown successfully against Francois Botha and Henry Akinwande had taken the WBO-title to Britain.

In 1997, Lennox Lewis overcame his old ghosts by stopping Oliver McCall and winning the vacant WBC-title and then he add the WBO-crown to his collections by winning Akinwande by disqualification before finishing the year with one-round demolition of the Polish heavyweight sensation Golota. Holyfield defended his WBA crown by winning Mike Tyson via DQ in their infamous rematch and later he also captured the IBF-title by knocking out Michael Moorer. At the end of the year, the circle had closed. Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis were the best of the division. Mike Tyson was again temporarily out of the picture. Some earlier prospects had been lost, but there were many that had taken their places, Michael Grant, David Tua, Chris Byrd and Ike Ibeabuchi being the brightest of them.

The year 1998 was more silent for the champions. Lewis defended his title twice and Holyfield once. Mike Tyson came back by knocking out Botha, while Grant, Tua and Ibeabuchi were slowly approaching the top. The year 1999 was the year of the solution. In March, Lewis and Holyfield boxed a very controversial draw. Later in the year, Ibeabuchi knocked out Byrd to become the hottest prospect of the division along with Michael Grant who stopped Andrew Golota. When Lewis outpointed Holyfield in their rematch in the November of the same year, the world had again one, undisputed heavyweight champion and many hungry contenders behind him. Even though many of their careers didn’t turn out as expected, the future of the weight-class in the end of the last decade looked bright.

As seen from everything so far, the time period from 1990-1999 was a very colourful one. A lot of things happened during that time. As I watch the name list of the fighters that the division included, I must say that actually I am quite surprised how many worthy contenders there actually were. In that sense the decade is certainly not one of the worst. The thing that sometimes makes an illusion about the “weak” division is the bunch of incidents that took place around 1994. At that time there was no clear world champion, but still it doesn’t mean that the division had been weak then.

As we can see, two names stand well over the others. Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis were around for the whole decade. Neither was a long-reigning champion like for example Larry Holmes in the 1980s but both secured their places in the history and possibly among the top-10 of all time. If these two fighters had not existed, the division would still have found its leaders. Tyson, Bowe and Moorer all were worthy champions. So by no means can that kind of division be called weak. How could it be called then? The Era of Two Greats? Not really, since there also was much not-so-great during this time. I think I would just name it as the Rich Era of the Heavyweight. Rich in the sense that it included everything. Great champions and their stability, paper titlists and titles that changed hands fast, the oldest champion ever, upcoming prospects, some of the biggest surprises ever, mega-fights, scandals, everything.

Talent-wise the 1990s was not the best, nor he worst decade for the matter, but it was one of the most colourful ever. The next years will show us how the first decade of the new millennium turns out to be. Even though the situation now doesn’t look that bright, there is still time left. If it is even nearly as memorable as the last one, we have no worries.

Comments/question: janneromppainen@hotmail.com