Could Marciano make 168lbs if he turned pro today?

Here is where you calculations might unravel.

You are assuming that the starting point for cutting weight is 185lbs.

If you are wrong by even a few pounds, it has big ramifications for your calculations.

Would he be able to get his weight down to 185lbs on a modern training plan, and would it leave him in a position to attempt a major weight cutting programme?

In effect you are combining two extreme training plans, sixty years apart, and assuming that they will not interfere with each other.

I suspect that a more realistic starting point would be 190lbs, and possibly a bit more.

If I am right then 168 is looking unlikely, and 175 is looking marginal at best.

 

To be honest, I am not sure how he was getting to 178lbs at the time, and that would have to have a bearing upon my answer.

Another idea that we could play with, is what if he had turned professional a bit earlier?

 

It tells us that 185 lbs was not too small for a HW those days, for one thing.

But draining 10 lbs with the same day weigh-in is also more difficult that doing it with a day extra. I think Marciano would have trouble making 175 lbs with same day weigh-in.

And there is nothing to suggest that Moore was 185 lbs in the ring as LHW. Probably he cut 5-10 lbs from his weight as a HW and then drained the rest.

With cutting I mean losing weight of fat and muscle. With draining I mean losing water weight.

 

There is nothing to suggest that he was 185lbs in the ring, but he probably would have been under the current weigh in rules.

More importantly, his weight at the weigh in, and his weight with no restrictions, match Kovalevs exactly.

Kovalev is under 175 at the weigh in, and he is 185on fight night.

Has that much really changed?

 

What's up with everyone and Rocky ? Marciano was a finely tuned 187 pound fighter .. he had thick legs and a powerful trunk. His arms were short and I doubt ten pounds of muscle would make a difference .. at the same time he was very lean .. to think of him dropping ten more pounds is a hell of a stretch to me .. I think he was one of the fighters that fought at the perfect weight for himself as he was ..

 

Yeah. I don't think there are any revolutionary "modern methods", it's just being allowed more time allows many of them to go down an extra weight class.

Discussing heavyweights in this regard seems a bit pointless anyway. We have no firm idea what fighters do or did to get to their weight, and in the case of heavyweights we don't even know that they weighed what they said they weighed.
Weigh-ins for heavyweights are usually purely ceremonial.

 

The change is, as you yourself suggests, that rehydrating 10 lbs of water weight after the weigh-in is nothing out of the ordinary today. In fact it is the norm more than anything below HW.

If you're 185 lbs today, you either drain down to fight at LHW or bulk up to fight at CW or HW. Can't say I know that much about the CW division, but would be very surprised if any of the top guys weighed in at 185 lbs.

 

It just doesn't add up to me.

Roman Gonzalez comes in the ring at 126 and is the best fighter on the planet today.

Are we really to believe he is the modern equivalent of classic FW fighters?

Does anyone realistically think he should be sharing a ring with Arguello? Saddler? Sanchez?.

I just don't think the rehydrate weight is he same as classic fight night weight.

 

What weight did Arguello, Saddler or Sanchez come in the ring at ?

 

But Gonzales did look a bit soft during the Cuadras weigh in.
Way softer than for example Golovkin who also gains 10+ lbs after the weigh in.

If he could come in at any weight, where would his weight be at?
I'd wager it would be around 122, considering he was a little soft against Cuadras.

The 3 fighters you mentioned were all very trim for 126, Gonzales at 126 against Cuadras was soft.

That's something that's to be considered yes.

But Arguello fought at 122 against Marcel when he could have come in at 126.

Would that specific version of Alexis have been a reasonable opponent for Gonzales in regards to their weight?
A 122 pound catchweight, same day weigh in. Young Arguello - experienced Gonzales.
That seems pretty fair to me.

But 126 pound Arguello vs 126 pound Gonzales is different yes.
Gonzales is clearly soft while Arguello is without an ounce of visible fat.

 

Arguello weighed in at 125 or 126.
He wasn't 126 in the ring surely.

 

My conclusion: Marciano absolutely could make 168 lbs today. In fact, I'd expect him to start there seeing how he was just north of 175 lbs in his early pro days. Even at his mature weight of 185-187 lbs he should be able to make 168 lbs, since it isn't that unusual to drain around 20 lbs before the weigh-in.

That doesn't mean he would, though. The majority of fighters around those weights seem to contend themselves with draining around 10 lbs and quite likely Rocky would too.

But I definitely think he would drain down to 175 lbs if he wanted to keep his weight around 185 lbs before draining. Boxing is a business and it makes no business sense to fight bigger guys at CW when he can quite easily fight guys his own size in the more prestigious LHW division and in all likelihood make more money at the same time.

 

Marciano liked to eat too much to make 168 feasible...he was Italian and loved the "spags" too much....he'd have to have a hollow leg, no matter what the training regimen was.