The Greatest Boxers of the 1970s - PART 1

The greatest boxers of the seventies years of the last century - PART 1

Top 10 Athletes Who Were Part of Sports' Greatest Decade

Over the last century, boxing was built into the sport we know today. As time went by, he began to gather a larger and larger fan base, and the seventies played a major role in his worldwide popularization. After an extremely successful decade in the 60s, boxers are trying to jump the high bar and make us witness even more impressive and memorable matches. With this article, we will begin ranking the top 10 competitors in the professional ring who left the most lasting mark on the sport during the decade in question. In the first part of the arrangement, we will recall five of them.

Tenth in our ranking is Bob Foster. A well-known name since the 1960s, it has maintained its quality well into the 1970s. He is even improving in some aspects and experts consider him to be in the top 5 light heavyweights of all time, known for his powerful punches and especially the left hook which is his specialty. Having won his world title in 1968, Forster entered the 1970s as the dominant champion in his weight class and did not lose the title until vacating it in 1974 to a draw with Jorge Aumada. After a year's break, however, the Texas boxer returned to the ring to win five more consecutive matches. However, after two consecutive losses in the year 78, he stopped for good from the sport. And before them, there is only one defeat at light heavyweight, which came to the Peruvian Mauro Mina early in Foster's career.

At number nine we rank Jose Napoles. The Cuban is among the greatest welterweight champions in history, having held every possible title in his hands for more than half a decade. After his success over Curtis Cox in 1969 and a defense against the legendary Emil Griffith, he lost his title in December 1970 after suffering a very serious eye injury in a match with Billy Backus. Just six months later, he defeated Backus in the eighth round of their rematch and lost only in his last fight in 1975 against John Stacey. Napoles has just one loss in the four years he has competed as a middleweight. She is coming into a title match against Carlos Monzon.

In the eighth position we find Joe Fraser. Although he only fought 12 fights in the 1970s, 4 of which he lost, Frazier was among the fighters who left an impression with his fights in the professional ring, and in a heavyweight division dominated by Muhammad Ali and George Foreman. These two are the only ones who beat Smoking Joe. After his career ended, Ali admitted that Frazier was the toughest opponent he ever faced. At the beginning of the decade, the boxer from South Carolina was a world champion and managed to defend his title, knocking out Ali in the 15th round in 1971 in the "Match of the Century". The seventies are definitely hailed as the best in sports and they wouldn't be the same without Joe Frazier.

Next, seventh in our ranking is Carlos Zarate. The Mexican is one of the greatest bantamweight boxers of all time. In the 1970s, he went on two streaks of at least 20 consecutive bouts in which he won by knockout, which also made him one of the best fighters ready to end his match with just one fatal blow to the opponent. No other boxer has done that in the entire history of the sport. Zarate won his first 52 bouts before moving up to super bantamweight and challenging Wilfredo Gomez for the world title in 1978. Before the fight, the combined statistics for the two shows that they have 73 wins from 74 matches, 72 of them by knockout. A year later, he lost his bantamweight title to Lupe Pintor by unanimous decision. However, he remained active until a very late age, but he would never be a world champion again.

And having mentioned the name of Wilfredo Gómez, it is time to present his career, which is worthy of the sixth position in this ranking. In the decade we're talking about, Gomez has the longest knockout streak. After a draw in their first match -Kyun Yum to capture the WBC belt. In 1978, he won his fight with bantamweight legend Carlos Zarate in the fifth round, inflicting the Mexican's first career loss. Gomez was undefeated in the 1970s, suffering his first loss until 1981 to featherweight champion Salvador Sanchez. Although he won two more world titles in the 1980s, the Puerto Rican was no longer the same boxer.

In the next part, we will also introduce you to the five best in the seventies. If the contestants so far have impressed you, imagine what's to come.

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