They still are. I have seen this same organized bullcrap against German Shepherds, Dobermans, and Rotweillers prior to Pit Bulls.
Thanks for the photo of Petey and Spanky! My Buster did not have the eye circle.....
Sadly, these days with all the scum inbreeding Pits, there are quite a few that are now dangerous.
Bad as dog fighting was back in the day, before scum and holder’s people gangers started collecting and breeding them, those that fought them at least had to good sense to put down Pits that “put a tooth” on a human and did a pretty good job of filtering out that bad trait.