How much of an indicator is Rocky vs Shkor?

Not much in my opinion.. I can only assume that Shkor's brief visit to the top 10 was orchestrated by his win over Tammy Mauriello who had about 80 fights of mileage behind him when they met and strongly protested the stoppage on top of that to the point of taking a swing at an official.. Shkor never did anything of note again. By the time he and Marciano met, Shkor had won only 5 of his last 15 bouts and had fought only once in the past 14 months losing in 1 round to Joe Walcott... Aside from having a short lived ranking, Shkor was a career journeyman. This win is no indication of how Rocky would do against more established super heavy's.

 

He showed on perhaps one or two occastions in his career that he could beat a significantly larger man. But the size dimensions belie the quality of the opponent. Mike White was a rather large man who fought during the 80's and 90's and had a record not too dissimilar to shkor's. Doesn't mean I'd pick the men who beat him to fair well against Lennox Lewis, Rid**** Bowe or Wladimir Klitscko.

 

Plus the skill to execute the gameplan. It's never just size.

Charley Burley gave 68 1/2 to Jay D. Turner and stopped him. But the guy was a journeyman. Impressive? Of course. But would you give him a shot against Joe Louis?

 

Or this.

 

I think Shkor was on par with a Bonecrusher Smith type big man.

Shkor had little amateur experience, served in the navy, and basically got matched with almost every name from his era.

As I always maintained Wlad, Lewis, Vitali could probably neutralize him. Everyone else is fair game.

 

Did Shkor beat anyone near as good as Weaver or Witherspoon or Bruno?

 

Nah.. smith was legitimately a top 3 guy at the high point of his career around 1986-1987. Shkor never truly reached that level and certainly was nowhere close to it when he fought Marciano.

 

The versions of Weaver and Spoon he fought? Yeah. A fit prepared Spoon made easy work of Smith.

Bruno, sure, comparable wins.

 

86 to 87..pretty brief high point, Like you criticize Shkor for.

 

He sparked Weaver in only one round in the same calendar year that Weaver beat a prime Williams. The Witherspoon fight was to suspicious of a dive to give any real merit to it, but yes. Smith was one of top three heavy's in the world in 1987 when Tyson beat him. Are you trying to sell people on the notion that the version of Shkor who fought Marciano and had won only five of his last fifteen bouts was comparable to the Smith who fought Tyson?

 

And when was Shkor's high point exactly? was it any time close to when he fought Rocky? was he considered a top 3-5 world beater during this high point?

 

Truth was pretty spotty to begin with. A last hooray for the declined but still hard hitting Weaver. I don't think highly of the win, I barely give Thomas A lot of credit....Weaver was just on the way out.