When the Klitschko’s were dominating the boxing heavyweight division for a decade or more, many said that this was because the division was weak and there where no other good boxers to challenge their dominance - unlike like the 80s and 90s when we had Tyson, Lennox, Bowe, Holyfield, Douglas etc.
Can the same logic then also be applied to Messi and Ronaldo winning Ballon d’Or year after year for the best decade or so? It’s not that they are so incredible, it’s because the competition for first place is so weak outside these two. The calibre of players in the 90s and 00s for example: Van Basten, Maradona, Baggio, Weah, R9, Ronaldinho, Zidane, Figo, Buffon, Rivaldo, Maldini, Viera, Totti, Khan, Carlos, Kaka, Henry, Shearer, Romario, Batistuta, Klinsmann, Matthaus, Cafu - I could go on and on, but I think that list already paints a picture.
So the question is, would Messi and Ronaldo have dominated any past generation, or do they exist in a time that we have a weak pool of potential winners - or maybe a bit of both?
It is actually the opposite. Players in the past where able to shine more because there weren’t 2 players dominating everything. That’s why it seems like there were more legends in the past. Also players are generally remembered more fondly as time passes. The 2010s had a lot of players that would have been more legendary if we didn’t have the binding light of messi and ronaldo hiding their more relatively normal glows.
Give it 10 years and players in 2010s will start being remembered more fondly.