Funny enough I was going to use the example of boxing to make the exact opposite point! Ali would easily dominate this extremely poor era of heavyweights, as would Foreman, Holmes, Tyson and just about any other of the 210lb+ great heavyweights of previous eras. The Klit brothers, especially Vitali, are the only ones that would realistically be competitive with them. This argument that the standard of athlete has continually risen in every sport is erroneous, and boxing is a perfect example. In the strength sports as well standards have generally stagnated for about two decades in olympic weightlifting and unequipped powerlifting.
In a sport where sport-specific skill trumps pure athleticism its even more the case that standards don't perpetually increase from generation to generation. While Xavi, Iniesta, Messi etc are extremely fit and nimble, they certainly aren't at the top of the game because they're the finest pure athletes, its because of their technical and tactical attributes. Similar to MMA, where people thought that the emergence of Lesnar, Carwin, Overeem etc meant that more normally sized heavyweights would be overmatched, yet the likes of Velasquez and Dos Santos are still at the summit of the heavyweight division.
