Lennox Lewis v Rocky Marciano

It's more careful and fortuidous career planning than an incredible record. He had a very short career, the majority of which was beating club level fighters, rose to the top briefly, conquered and soon retired. He didn't stick around long enough at the top to really face a wide array of heavies, rather almost exclusively older, smaller guys with a couple no hopers mixed in.

 

A haters argument. No other hwt champion retired undefeated. Rocky fought everyone. I was like you years ago. I wised up. Maybe one day you will also.

 

Nothing I stated is false. He played a game of capture the flag, then retired. He faces nothing like the array of heavies that Louis, Lewis, Ali or even Holmes did. Tunney, Sullivan, Jeffries and Holmes would have been undefeated with more astute career planning and a little luck. Marciano got his share of good breaks, also. The Charles fight would have been stopped 20 years later, for one.

 

Marciano was amazing. Even though retiring at 32 helped & he never faced a great slugger, still he had remarkable subtle skills perhaps unprecedented for someone of great power & endurance.

Though yes nobody should expect him to take out great SHW when he was essentially a small CW. Given his wingspan & lack of speed it is amazing how great he is compared to those in his size ballpark, under 200.

The question of top POWER af some guys under 6' & at most around 200 lbs. is fascinating.

There is a book by a pre-eminent baseball historian Bill Jenkinson wrote "Baseball's Ultimate Power". He used tons of reasearch, microfiche, surveying, physics to calculate how far in uninterrupted ball would travel...

Mantle was #3 all time, w/the 2nd furthest individual shot not counting some hit by #1, & Kimmie Foxx, just a bit taller at 6' & 200, was #2.
Babe Ruth was clearly #1, but he was not a worked out muscle head.
6' 2", ~ 215 when fit & not overweight, no SHW.

Mantle was ~ #1 in speed too.

Some pitchers who threw amongst the fastest ever were under or ~ 6'
max. 6' & not mustular-Smokey Joe Woods, Bob Feller, Billy Wagner...While the fastest of modern times is taller, Chapman is lean.
And a legend who was at max 5'11" & 180, if that, may well have been the fastest ever...Google Steve Dalkowski.

In boxing some of the ear hardest hitters were not that much over 200 lns. & often under 6'.

It is possible that Earnie Shavers at a dubious max of 6' & ~ 210 was THE hardest hitter ever.

It seems that while theoretically huge SHW or even NBA /NFL size guys should have the most power...

Being a certain level of basic size, & being able to generate great speed & coordinated leverage....
Can allow a few folks to be as powerful as anyone.

**** Allen was under 6' & 190 & was barely beaten out, viirtually identical, in tape measure home runs by Elston Howard, 6' 7" & ~ 260 before all the working out later players did. Both top 5.

Until Bolt many of the fastest sprinters ever were under 6' & of course well under 200. Such a Bob Hayes & Maurice Green (5' 9").
While more folks are that size rather than huge, stilll especially when there are so many more people & better nutrition & training many of the top "power" guys have been more ordinary strong guy, not massive height or steroidal size, proportions!

 

All the fighters you mentioned would not have gone 49-0 against Rockies exact same opponents.

Rocky was that good, every time.

 

Very true. There is no reason to berate Rocky. Those that do come from a thought process that does not include boxing. We have had many hwt champions. None except Marciano retired undefeated.

Larger Size and more weight does not mean you hit harder. The amateurs and MMA types are easily pointed out when this is the first thing they point to. The ability to put ones body weight behind punches is the key to devastating punching power. Rocky could KO any hwt regardless of SIZE.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeD40bYbpGI

Watch from 258-340.

Once Lewis got up to 238lb he did not like working the full three minutes.

 

None of the above. I think NONE have the consistency or will to do it. All of the above, Ali, Holmes, Louis and Lewis would fall to at least one of the fighters Marciano faced.

I think it would be VERY doubtful if they would even get to 40-0

 

There is a reason why it was never duplicated.


Willpower, Stamina and Crushing power. Everytime.

 

I really like Marciano, but on the other hand Lewis is a really big dude, with skills. If it was p4p, Rocky everytime. H2H, I am not so sure. Don't want to say Rocky loses ... but I'm not so sure he wins, either.