Marciano's Body Frame could easily be Tua and Tyson

ok fols are all over the map on this issue. Some are pretty accurate, but some not & some of the terms lack precision such as body composition vs. weight.
As someone who has lifted for years & read a fair amount about maximum natural body wight potential-& can provide the hyperlinks-

I enumerate some points & ask any who question or disagree to be very specific.

1) Rocky did train down, he both catabolized some muscle & shed fat. He was not naturally lean like some athletes, he was very disciplined & added endurance & workrate.

2) He naturally would walk around at over 200 but with more fat. He got fat after he retired.

3) With modern training & without PEDs he cdould potentially get to ~ 205-210 lbs. relatively CUT: which means maybe 20 lbs. more muscle than he carried in his prime. This is a lot.

3) He did NOT have the bone structure nor natural muscularity of either Tyson or Tua. Let alone Foreman.

4) It is unknown but doubtful that the relatively small amount of extra power he would have maxing out his muscle would be worth the loss of endurance & work rate. SOME may keep those fairly intact, with the most careful training. Holyfield w/all the added upper body muscle...But that involved DRUGS too.

5) Saying Rocky could ever be CUT at 225 or 230 without setroids or similar PEDS is absurd.
Take someone his height, Toney...
He both got fat, & even when NOT fat used some PEDs.

5) Fighting more often, & 15 rounders, with less clinching allowed...MITIGATED against very bulky fighters.

6) Italians have smaller bone structures? Nah, though South Pacific men tend to have bigger ones at the same height.
Rocky was remarkable in many ways.
He was just not naturally a hoss---> But his countryman Primo Carnero was.
at 6' 5" 1/2" he was not fat in the 260's. HE was a rare old time fighter who had a natural strong-man physique.


Anyone have any problem with these suppositions?

 

Italians are not a ****genous gene pool. Carnera was from Friuli in the north which is a long, long way from Abruzzo where Marciano's kinfolk hailed. There have been incredible athletes from the north, central and south of Italy. Any generalization that I would make is that those in the Central/South are smaller than those from the central/eastern north. Again, just generalizations.

Marciano, in particular, just didn't have the bone structure to carry 200 pounds as an elite athlete. He had very narrow shoulders, a very shallow chest and very short limbs. The bulk of his weight was in his ass and legs. And guess what? It worked amazingly well for him. He was probably the greatest fighter ever in the 180-190 weight range. Not sure I would pick anyone against him there. But his potential fades quickly above that given his structural and athletic deficiencies (not to say he wasn't a great athlete, just wasn't quick or well balanced).

 

I agree with most all of that Seamus. Though I do not see that the implied respionse of an issue with what i wrote applies, since it does not contradict what I wrote.

The only part which I am not fully on board with is that Marciano could not be a top athlete at 200. Sure he could be-he trained down & in part lost muscle. He could be around Frazier's peak size & weight, & their build was similar.
The relative smallness of his upper body could be supplemented with muscle.

Now whether he would be as GOOD-given the likely loss in work rate & endurance-is a big question. But he could be eilte.
And with modern rules, bout length etc...Less of an advantage to be had.

But ues he may well have been worse in ABSOLUTE terms, certainly it seems under the rules of his time-at 205-210.

And we agree that he both would not BE heavier cut absent PEDs.
And that being 225-230 would be absurd for him.

People underestimate how much body fat folks have oftren, certainly for themselves.

I have been & am near a 41" waist with a body fat up to the upper 20's i ould wager. I could always see at least some faint 4 pack, due to whatever combination of genetics/subcutaneous fat distribution & tons of sit ups when young & thin.

I could delude myself I am not overweight. Instead of even with muscle from years of weightlifting, I am ~ 10% over the most that I should be...
And almost 10% more than that over what would be truly lean.

Whatever exact weight would be not just diminishing but reversing rfeturns for Rocky-depending upon rules & era, & it may be no more than what he weighed...

But he would not have even peak un-pumped Tyson's full muscular bulk naturally. Let alone Tua's
As Holyfield would not have quite had....Naturally.

 

Nice thread. He would be a cruiserweight, that weighed about 210-215 fight night id say.

You need to compare him to modern cruiserweights like lebedev Huck and so on...

 

What weight would Pinklon Thomas sized guys be today? Would they be better or just bigger? Can you also compare them to Lebedev and Huck?

Ali and Holmes were fighting at the weight modern Cruisers rehydrate to. come fight night cruisers are in the low 200s just like everything (in shape) before the mid 1990s did.

Everybody shorter and smaller boned than say Bonecrusher Smith and Tex Cobb sized guys could make Cruiserweight under today's rules too.

 

:roll::nut

 

Of course he could, with proper conditioning and nutrition. It's been said that, during training, Rocky ate only one large meal per day. Modern weight training protocol recommends 5 small meals per day. He was, in effect, limiting his body's ability to gain lean muscle mass. With modern techniques and diet, of course he could gain muscle mass. With said gain you will see shoulders widen, chest broaden, etc...

 

Someone show me a dominating heavyweight from the past 40 years who was under 6 feet, had a sub-70 inch reach and possessed neither speed nor exceptional balance.

 

Tyson didn't lift weights before prison. His training under D'Amato was probably more like Rocky's than, let's say, Wlad's.

If Rocky was around today, I can easily see him at 210 lbs without any loss in stamina or speed. But he'd still give up a lot in size, without having young Tyson's tremendous speed advantage.

 

I think his potential hits a very hard wall at certain size. But he was proven to be a terror against very good fighters around his weight.

If some think he would dominate an era of much larger (not just heavier) guys, that's fine, but there is no blueprint for this, not in his own career or in any other fighter's career.

 

I haven't read through the the whole thread thread but i've gotta say there has been a few references to modern nutrition. Is this as a given fact because everything I read is that kids back in Rocky's time were eating better food growing up than the kids of today. Most scientific surveys would tell you that the food we eat now has less nutritional value than it had 50 years ago. For example here's just one source http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-and-nutrition-loss/
Anyway that's just food for thought but talking about size here's photos with my old fella with Rocky in 69 and Vitali in 2010 which is more food for thought http://s1172.photobucket.com/user/Juzzerbell/media/dadandtheRock.jpg.html?o=83 and http://s1172.photobucket.com/user/Juzzerbell/media/klitscho.jpg.html?o=84
My old fella was a bantamweight by the way and weighed less in the first photo

 

Rocky Balboa?

 

Many eat worse, but anyone whyo takes care can eat as well as ever, & knows much more about balancing nutrients, even before supplements, such as eating often to absorb more of them, especially protein, & maximize muscle & recovery.

There is a dramatic difference between what most do & what elite or any serious athletes do & have access to.

 

In Rocky Balboa his height & reach was listed at 5' 11".
Though the general point is valid.