Liston over Marciano - Can Anyone Sanely...

Carmine Vingo was actually 7-2 and weighed 280 pounds with -2% body fat and was considered the uncrowned champ of the heavyweight division.

 

There is more than one way to skin a cat. Don’t forget Marciano was a great fighter and nobody is guaranteed to wipe out great fighter.

Remember, Liston would be punching down on marciano and would find rocky pretty frustrating and awkward. Liston would not enjoy the space to use that jab to set things up as easily as some would hope. It would not be one way traffic. bombs would be coming both ways, something Liston was not used to.

I would expect a competitive fight at the very least. Of the two marciano coped better in competitive fights. There is no evidence of anyone entirely overwhelming marciano in an exchange.

Liston could take a punch but he fought a lot of frozen fighters who were already psyched out. I noticed in fights of his that often a punch would register and cause pause for thought. ali and whitehurst for example bothered sonny at times with single shots. patterson was a good puncher but he never got the chance to hit Liston. williams stung Liston but did not hit as hard as marciano according to kenne simmons who fought both.

angelo dundee himself said (given that he was in besmanoffs corner when Liston beat him) that :“who did liston knock out? Al westphal that’s all. Cleveland Williams was on his feet and besmanoff was stopped on cuts. Forget Patterson - he was psyched out. Boxing beat liston. Boxing and cassius clay.”


Of course Liston did beat real contenders like machen folley and harris - the harris fight being the most impressive but the weaker contender who offered very little on the night. We will never know if folly came to fight because the film has not been available. Many of the other sometimes contenders Liston met were second stringers on losing streaks whom all other contenders could beat when Liston squashed them. There was a lot of one sided fights.

Liston was impressive at a level but his performances against top psyched out opponents has created a mystique that has overblown his standing in h2h ratings IMO.

 

:good

 

But did george foreman meet the real joe frazier? There is no way on earth Frazier was the same pin point acurate, razor sharp beast who cleaned out the 1968-1971 scene. Frazier was mixing in the wrong era when he met george. Frazier, like marciano did not need the "luck of the draw" for four years against the best out there but pushed his luck after when his best was done. Frazier could never hope to be the same fighter after TFOTC, he had paid his dues up until that point.

 

The jab pays the bills in boxing. Liston would decisively outjab Marciano: Rocky never had to deal with one as good, and a jab like Listons is very hard to sustain. Just a punishing weapon, one that would break up Rock's face in short order.

Rocky had an underrated defense, but ultimately, he had one strategy when stuff wasn't going his way: Grind his way in, let his hands go, and damn what came back. He got hit plenty flush in plenty of fights by plenty of guys, but he was always the better man in there: The harder puncher, the stronger guy. And when he met an opponent with the skills to deal with his approach, they were each JUST old enough to lack the legs and the reflexes to keep up a tactical approach for long.

Rocky is absolutely an amazing fighter, a threshing machine, but he did benefit in some tiny ways with the era he fought in.

He never fought a Liston. Liston had all the tools you need to beat Marciano-The length, the power, the strength, and in the early days, the ferocity.

I do think its a great point that if Rocky could get in, and impose his will, his greater character could see him through hell to victory.

I honestly don't think he makes it enough rounds to get to that point. A prime Liston would have what he needed to stay away for a decent chunk of time, and he'd have the strength to escape the inside enough times to work behind his long range punches.

I think those long range punches and terrific uppercuts and hooks(The ones he hit a lunging Patterson with) would accumulate real fast.

He's not the greater fighter, might not even be the better fighter, but he has all the tools to beat Rocky. Any fight where its one fighters chin and will against the other fighters best stuff, I'll go with the attacking guy, be his arsenal potent.

For the first 4 or 5 rounds, Rocky would be all but at Listons mercy on the outside and on the way in, and I don't think he would be able to sustain, face and chin, what that would cost him to rally late over a fading or breaking Sonny.

Just my view.

 

Frazier struggles with Foreman at any time.

Any version of George is going to attack with everything he has, and any version of Frazier is going to attempt to hold his ground, weave, and give back.

Foreman's greater firepower and iron jaw see him to a stoppage in this sort of war more often then not. Peak Frazier's defense was good, but not amazing, and even the best defensive specialists(Young) got hit by Foreman and hurt eventually. Young ran like his life depended on it when that moment came. Frazier would try to fight back, and he'd get blown away, much like in Jamaica. It's a stylistic mismatch.

Frazier deteriorated after FOTC, but not nearly as drastically as is made out.

 

Yes you are right about what both would do however the timing prime Frazier had would effect young george - a prime Frazier would meet george on the way in, it would not have been one way traffic. Foreman looked awsome because he wasnt getting hit back - if you watch foremans recent fight against ted gullick just before the frazier fight he got caught with plenty. Frazier would have hurt george bad with even the timing gullick had.

70% of peak fraziers defence was how he could time and double up that lead hook at any range. You take away that timing and he has to take shots on the way in. Thats ok against ali and joe bugner but suicide against foreman. George had fun with frazier but he would not have had so much of an easy time before TFOTC.

joe was still a great fighter against those he did not need to depend on so much timing against. His eyesight was out by then but frazier was still able to be a great fighter but needed more things his way by then.

 

Unfortunately for rocky, he's just too small for serious h2h debates against elite true heavyweights such as liston.

 

This is going to put the Marciano faithful past the boiling point of metal. Hard to honestly disagree though.

 

in a nutshell:good

 

I notice that people are happy to tag Liston as having some false bullyboy presence, but they arent attributing the same presence to Rock. And they are happy claiming that Liston relied on it but arent claiming that Rocky relied on it to beat his opponents. The hyperbole surrounding Marciano is just as farfetched and scary as that surrounding Listons - they both relied and created fearsome reputations which must have chilled opponents. Its almost as if people are attributing cowardly bullying to Liston but fearsome heroics to Rocky, which is silly and probably racist.

 

Niether 'relied' on it and Liston was certainley more fearsome than Rocky. Liston was physically gigantic, enourmous fists, cold stare, links to mob, was in jail ,huge reach and power etc. while Rocky broke down his opponents over the course of a fight, simply brutalized them punching non-stop hitting where ever the hell he could whenever the hell he could.

Liston had his opponents pysched out before the fight even began while the Rock beat the confidence and heart out of fighters.

 

well I admit there are differences, after all, Liston was considerably bigger, stronger and more physically powerful, the hyperbole surrounding Marciano is equally mistrewed - having the punching power equal to an armour piercing bullet etc, and the way his willpower is misconstrued to be superhuman.

but some posters are trying to make out that Liston relied on it in a big way, as if Marciano didnt.

 

I dond't understand why people talk about liston psyching his opponents out in a negative way?

If a professional prize fighter enters the ring scared because of the opponent they're facing, that has to be construed as a positive?

If we're to believe patterson was completely psyched out and frozen, then that's because liston's in-ring performances were so ferocious he actually scared the hw champ (only paper champ by that point but champ non the less) into this "shell" now if that kind of mental prowess is not a positive, then I don't know what is!

 

THat's always an interesting point as Frazier was not at his best in 73 but he did have very good performances against Bugner, Quarry and of course Ali so he has far from shot as well ... that being said few believe Joe or for that matter Rocky match up well with a much larger, stronger, harder punching Foreman at any point in their careers ... Rocky was also very smart .. he knew post Moore that he was not getting younger, injuries were accumulating and if he continued to fight he would soon be an older champion fighting younger men opposed to being the young champion fighting old names ... to his credit he got out at the right time and managed to not give in to the desires of coming back ... to me Rocky's biggest accomplishment was over coming that desire and maintaining his legend ...