Rocky fouled everyone and so did Holyfeild, Holmes, Ali and all the others. You are aware as much as I am of evanders blad third glove. Larrys laces. Alis corner post throws. Does it make it right? No. Does it make it right for all the others? Of course not. So why home in on Rocky? was he unbeaten as a heavyweight or not? He beat a rated America contender in America as the away fighter didn't he? Jimmy Slade was pretty darn good. Cokkell was rated. You didn't get rated in those days by flurttering eye lashes at Tv executives or signing elegance with promotional groups. To decide a logical challenger for Marciano It was a toss up between cokkel and Nino Valdes. The New York fans were underwhelmed with Nino after the Parker fight and it was decided Don was a bette draw on the west coast.
I homed in on his foul tactics, then mentioned some of his positives,I did it to provide balance. C*ckell really didn't deserve a title shot,he was a try out for the damaged nose.Marciano ruined Don just as he had Lastarza, the thing is he ruined Lastarza before he ruined C*ckell,thereby enabling Don to take advantage of it and get the credibility as a ranked contender. If C*ckell had got Layne after Rocky was through with him he might have beaten him too,its all about timing and taking the right match at the right time.
I'm a huge fan of Archie Moore, but if you think a 39 to 42 year old Archie Moore is upsetting a 20 year old Tyson you need to have your head examined.
I think that those making outlandish predictions for Tyson's chances of success, are being somewhat reckless. There are two important points here: A. Not one heavyweight in history managed to replicate what Marciano did in another era. B. Tyson clearly suffered a catastrophic loss of focus early on, and no champion has ever been good enough to absorb that. Maricano's record is not hard to replicate because he was a head to head monster, it is hard to replicate because he was a monster of consistency. People rationalize the Douglas loss after the fact, as has always been the way with upsets. The bottom line is that nobody saw Douglas as even being one of the greater potential threats to Tyson, until it was too late.
The timeline is in Tyson's favor in some ways. Walcott is the biggest threat on paper, and he draws him on the one fight where he would almost certainly be focused.
Tyson was capable of beating every one of them. But he wouldn't. And that is why he is not rated as high as Marciano. He would never get to 49-0 without completely losing a piston. Tyson was his own worst enemy.
Tyson got to 35-0 in 3 years. Not sure why he couldn't do the same to Marciano's challengers within that same period of time. This thread has some strange and untruthful replies.