Is Rocky Marciano the Greatest H2H fighter of All Time?

Regardless of weight division or era?

It was conclusively proven that he could not be beat. He is in the argument as being one of the two most power punchers the sport ever saw. He was indefatigable.

Is it possible that he is simply the greatest the sport has ever seen, that no other fighter could defeat him on an even playing field?

Nay... Can it even be argued to the contrary?

 

NAY, Man to man each in their prime. Dempsey and Louis beats
Marciano at their bests. STYLE< STYLE< STYLE. Much as I loved
Rocky....Speed trumps power, everything being equal...

 

As you know Burt, when Rocky was in his prime ,those that had seen both Dempsey and a prime Louis unhesitatingly picked them to beat him.
I have Ring magazines from the 50's stating Marciano was an inferior version of Dempsey.
Seamus is highlighting the ridiculous stance of some Rockette Fan Boys who won't admit the possibility that he could be defeated.

 

No. Great, but quite small, slow, against modern sized greats HWs when he would not be near the size to even get approved to compete? Size is not everything, but it is an advantage. And he hit very hard, certainly not the hardest ever, & nobody in the 180's would.

Guys always like the oldies they saw, thus those 1st hand accounts are not so persuasive, & he certainly might have beat Dempsey. A style advantage & Louis not predicting who would win means he would have a shot against him.

 

Yes.

 

Marciano, as much as I like him, gets thumped by many a heavyweight modern and old.

 

Not even the best Heavyweight of all time, never mind the best h2h fighter.

 

Rocky is always going to cause a great divide by fans of the sport. His supporters will point to his immaculate record and his detractors to his diminutive physical dimensions. Both sides have a strong argument and therefore Marciano is often both the most underrated and most overrated fighter in the Heavyweight division.
Based on accomplishment he clearly a top 5 heavyweight. He faced all his most deserving challengers and won emphatically. He also had the great quality like Louis to perform much better in rematches (Lowry, Walcott, Charles, Lastarza)
On the other hand he came along during a time their was no outstanding large heavyweight. That coupled with his own small stature raises legitamite questions to how he would fair against modern heavies. And as posted above contemporaries (not always the best source surprisingly) did view him as inferior to previous all time greats in Louis and Dempsey.
I guess when doing an assessment of Rocky a lot depends on what your criteria is or how you weight/value different aspects of a fighters career.

 

Posters who say that if anyone picks a fighter of yesterday to beat a fighter of today, TRULY IMPLY that the person who for example, chooses a Dempsey or Louis to beat Marciano CANNOT be as OBJECTIVE as THEY ARE...And the
overwhelmingly amount of boxing experts who chose Dempsey to lick Rocky Marciano ,both at their bests and seeing them BOTH fight, are somehow
less informed and honorable than THEY are 90 or so years later, are to me dealing with their ego's...Remember this poll of boxing writers who chose Dempsey, were polled during the HEIGHT of Marciano's championship...
Therefore I who saw Ray Robinson as a Welterweight ringside a few times and
INSIST he would have beaten anyone TODAY hands down post this because
I am not objective, but just a nostalgia buff...
Well I also say that Alexis Arguello would have whipped any version of Sandy Saddler who I also saw in his prime decades before Arguello, and I will go out on a limb and think that a Gennady Golovkin, would have done nicely with the top middleweights of my favorite era growing up ,the 1940s...
I calls them as I sees them, a phrase not from Shakespeare...

 

I am sure there were boxing writers who saw both Marciano and Ali fight in their respective primes, or Louis and Ali, and would have claimed that the oldies would have whupped Ali. Doesn't make them right. It just means that nostalgia will always exist.

 

Hell, why not?

 

OK, so by YOUR standards the latest is the greatest. CASE CLOSED, burn yesterday's record books...Mayweather is better, than Robinson, Duran, Tommy Hearns, Ray Leonard...I give up...
Maybe I am nostalgic. Nostalgic for common sense...

 

You have a good sense of humor.

Marciano is living proof how inferior that bygone era was to the ones that came after it. Marciano would not come close to contending for a HW title today, in fact he wouldn't be a HW at all.

 

nice strawman rebuttal

 

Just don't rate Liston as an unbeatable force.