Marciano in your top 10.

Moore. as he demonstrated for the next six years, was able to make 175. He was 1/4 lb lighter on fight night but inherently smaller than Marciano who never mage 175 as a pro to my knowledge.

And who cares what Spinks weighed? He was a lot smaller than Tyson. And Tyson took him out in 90 seconds without having to get off the canvas to do so. That's the benchmark for how a heavyweight champion should take care of a light heavyweight, a standard that Marciano's off the floor 9th round win falls way short of.

 

Maybe just maybe Marciano never tried to make LHW.

Who cares? You obviously because you brought up the point of Tyson knocking out a "LHW" who wasn't a LHW when he fought Tyson, you also forgot to mention Tyson outweighed Spinks by half a stone.

 

Again. So what? I'm not saying Tyson was the greatest but, at 23, he had been champion longer than Marciano ever was. And made more defences.

My point wasn't to compare Tyson to Marciano, anyway. It was meant to highlight the difference between how a fighter you think is poor (Tyson) handled an ATG lightheavy compared to how a fighter you rate highly (Marciano) handled an ATG light heavy.

Put it this way. Two heavyweights fight an ATG light heavy. One wins in 90 seconds, one gets put on his arse before winning in 9 rounds. I know you struggle to see my logic but, I've got to be honest, I don't see how you can square your own argument.

 

I didn't 'forget' to mention it. I just thought it was irrelevant.

 

Who doesn't rate Tyson? He's a genuine ATG IMO. Again will you stop with the LHW rubbish, Moore was the same size as Marciano in the ring.

 

No he wasn't. He may have weighed the same but seven years later he was still making 175lbs. His 188 vs Marciano was a bit of an anomaly at that point in his career. Marciano, whether he tried to or not, never made 175 in his career. He was significantly the bigger man.

 

No he wasn't? Are you for real? If he was the same size he was err.... the same size!

 

9 or 10

 

Marciano, with a rigorous regime, trained right down to 188lbs.

Moore, several years later, was able to train down to 175. A weight Marciano never managed. Understandably, as he was a bigger man.

One was able to weigh 175 years later. One, despite a spartan regime. never scaled 175 in his entire career.

Yeah. They were the same size.

 

Do you know the diet of both fighters?, diet has a much bigger bearing on weight loss than any training methods.

 

Sorry wass. Don't see the relevance. My point is that Marciano's frame could only let him go as low as 188. He would train right down to maximise his stamina. Moore's frame, had he trained right down, would have - indeed did, for a number of years afterwards - let him keep going another 13lbs all the way down to light heavyweight.

Marciano was the bigger man.

 

Missed this earlier.

Even if Moore was 38, does that negate my point? Moore was no longer prime, 39, 40, 42 whatever.

Unless you think 38 is a good age for a fighter with over 100 fights under his belt.

 

Ali was gifted a few I agree. With that said he defended his title successfully 20 times I believe. That is a pretty big disparity.

 

Thing is with Rocky is he was not conventional but it worked.

He was smaller than folks expect a great champion to look like. So many people cannot get past that even though there is a history of champions initially even lighter than Rocky making an impact on the modern division.

Rocky was not a face first cruiserweight. or swarmer. Whatever that means.

Marciano was not a fancy boxer puncher either.

He was simply exceptionally successful at making what he could not do into the thing he did not need to do. And the stuff he could do really well was always the thing his opponent could never prevent from happening.

Other champions were better at what they did. They looked better doing it. But Rocky was the one who made everything work for him when it counted. He was more effective at getting what he had count and what he couldn't do not count. Nobody could touch him for this. And on top of that, he did retire before there was any degeneration. So nobody can know for sure what it took to destroy him.

He remains the code that was not cracked. But Rocky still was around long enough for all that he did to stand up. It all really was legit. And there was enough of it to tick boxes for the time that he was around.

There literally was nothing more he could have done in the time rthat he had.

There was better champions. Who were around a lot longer. But that cannot take away from Rocky in his time.

 

Good post. Not a big Rocky fan but cannot argue with a word of this.