Did Marciano Have the Flu when he Fought Henri & Applegate?

49-0 43 KO's...deal with it...

 

What is obvious about top fighters is that they can often look ordinary against second-rate opposition and then get it together for tougher opponents.

Louis looked off his game in a couple of his bum of the month club fights.

Liston was less than at his best against Whitehurst, Besmanoff, and King.

Peak Robinson fought a draw with Henry Brimm. Peak Pep fought a draw with Jimmy McAllister.

Slaughtering second-rate opposition is not a very good criteria for evaluating top fighters. It's like that in a lot of sports. Running up the score against the patsies is not the same as winning the big ones.

I would consider consistency and winning the big ones to be what matters.

 

Isn't that the age of the journeyman who knocked Dempsey out cold in 1 round?

 

Nothing is wrong with Liston's performances. He won them all. He just didn't win them with quite the gusto he did against Williams, Harris, and Folley, who were a solid level above these three.

Liston did look flat against Besmanoff until he cut him. Liston was clearly on his way to a decision victory. I have seen this film and actually saw the fight live on TV in 1959.

The description of the 1960 King fight is on the Senor Pepe thread. I didn't bump it because of Liston and his performance, but because of the comment at the end about Cleveland Williams.

As for one punch KO artist--you presented your case well.

Robinson and Pep--we are not talking about not knocking out a guy soon enough or just winning a lopsided decision. Neither man actually won these fights.

I am certainly not claiming Brimm or McAllister were in the same league as Robinson or Pep. Just the opposite.

 

And Wlad Klitschko.

When is the last time he lost?

 

No.

Moore held his title into his forties.

Robinson beat Basilio at 37 and KO'd Fullmer with one punch at 36.

Joe Brown held his title until he was 36 and was The Ring fighter of the year at 35.

Going into 1960, the light-heavyweight champion was 43, the middleweight champion almost 39, the lightweight champion 34, and the flyweight champion 34.

That is of 8 champions--(10 if you count the two junior champions)

 

I think Moore was good at 39, like Wlad is good at 39.
Most people say Walcott didn't even hit his prime until he was well into his 30s. He was champion of the world when Rocky fought him first.

 

Rocky didn't have the flu,...in his prefight meal, the "spags" were overcooked, that's all...not al dente, the way he liked them.

 

Well, I just watched quite a bit of film of Ingemar Johansson for another thread, and he sure shows the difficulty of judging punching explosiveness.

Machen and Patterson had never been stopped. Johansson dropped them with his first right, and both were in deep doo-doo right away and never recovered. Hein Ten Hoff is also blown out with two early rights.

But in the films against Uber Bacilieri, Franco Cavicchi, and Joe Erskine, Ingo plods through round and round and just seems to wear these guys down at best. All seem able to survive a lot of rights.

But Machen and Patterson were certainly a level above the three who took Ingo deep into their fights.

I think there is an enigma here that will never yield a simple answer, or calculation.