Quote Originally Posted by Lyle

It's not a matter of where are the American heavyweights it's there's finally a LARGE group of people who can box professionally and they are showing they are just as good as everyone else
Obviously this is true to a certain point. If the Soviet Union still existed (and none of their boxers fought professionally), American fighters would still have their hands on a few titles. Truth be told, the only non-American, non-(ex)Soviet fighter with a genuine shot at a title these days is Sam Peter.

But that being said, even if they did hold titles the current American HW's are a far cry from the HW's of 10-15 years ago. It speaks volumes that I would actually rate McCall higher on a 'American heavyweight ranking' now, than I would have 5-10 or 15 years ago. And to be honest, from a historical perspective it isn't even that that generation was extraordinarily strong, but that this generation is extraordinarily weak.