how great would marciano be if he wasnt undefeated??

Wonderful post. Absolutely the kind of point I wish I could make half as well myself. It is perfect. True. And inarguable.

 

Martin's crown was a fluke Charr a legitimate world champion?GTF!

 

Charr is the regular WBA champ. It’s inarguable that the WBA belt makes Charr a legitimate world champion in 2017.

 

it matters who he fought and lost to and if he came back and won. Losses are no big deal. if you fight the best.

 

How do you see him beating Wlad and Vitali? Decisions, ko's?

 

Of course. If he suffers a stoppage against small, late-career Ezzard Charles, for example, he probably doesn't end up in most people's top 10s. It becomes that much harder for people to put 47-2 Marciano above guys like Holmes, Lewis, Frazier, Foreman, Liston, Holyfield, etc., and he probably loses separation from the Tunneys, Bowes, and Pattersons of the world, imo.

 

First of all, in the whole history of the championship, no defending heavyweight champion has ever been stopped on a cut. So let’s not pretend Marciano being stopped on a cut was ever likely in the first place. Secondly Charles was not much older than Rocky and 55-7 toward a 87 total fight career after the war so this business of a faded or old Charles is totally over stated.

You are then left with a champion who cleaned out the division, retired as champion, never defended to less than a #2 contender, won fight of the year or fighter of the year awards each year he was champion.. so it really should still be enough for most historians without the 49-0 label. 49-0 is just a small thing anyway.

 

The referee was thinking of stopping the second fight between Rocky and Charles that is a documented fact. Charles was a bit ring worn you cant have that sort of mileage and not be imo.
Marciano's 49-0 doesn't mean a lot to me,the fact that he beat every challenger he needed to does. He dropped out of my top ten about 10 years ago.

 

That’s fair enough. I am not here to persuade you.

I think Rocky was well ahead against Charles. He’d decked him already and everything. It would have been a hollow victory for Charles to have been handed the title like that. Kind of like Montel Griffin getting a DQ win over Roy Jones. A rematch would have erased it for certain.

It’s not like Lewis getting stretchered by Rahman. He avenged that loss but he’d been knocked sparko. It was no freak cut thing like Charles would have had over Rocky.

If Lewis only got stopped on a cut after flooring Rahman who would hold it against him? It would not even be classed as a blip.

Crushing knockouts are not comparable to a cut nose in a fight the guy is winning hands down.

 

I really like this post. I think Ali would do well as he relied on speed and mobility. He would probably have to learn to carry his hands higher to adjust to bigger opponents, but he would have the advantages which helped smaller men win through history.

I admit I'm often puzzled by those who assume Liston, though, would do well against modern super-heavyweights. He was largely a come forward power fighter. In his own day he was at least as big and generally much bigger than his opposition. Trying to reach with that long left jab against guys big enough to cross a right is problematical for me.

 

Liston in his last fight with Wepner shows how he'd dismantle SHWs.

Jab + slip + move outside the pocket.
Counter while closing the distance, land power shots on the inside.

His mechanics and technique were very effective even in his last fight.

 

I disagree with those who think Marciano losing a fight or two would really matter that much. This is based on the fights he would lose would be the decisions to Lowry and/or LaStarza. Assuming a loss in a fight he won by KO, such as the second Charles fight, is simply totally revising history, such as assuming Dempsey didn't make it back into the ring against Firpo or Johnson didn't beat the ten count against Ketchel. Of course the reps would then nosedive, but this sort of argument is just too much fantasy.

Marciano would still have dominated his opposition, even with a couple of disputed decision losses, more than any other 20th century heavyweight champion. He would still have never been knocked out, never down for even a five count, KO'd every rated or ever rated fighter he fought, scored the highest percentage of KO's of any champion, beaten every man he fought decisively either in the original meeting or a rematch, etc.

Because he never lost the debate often focuses on that 49-0 record, but I think it a mistake to assume the debate would not shift to perhaps his stronger arguments if he had a close decision loss or two.

The best historical analogy to how Marciano would be viewed if he suffered an early loss is Carlos Monzon. I don't disparage Monzon's greatness at all because he lost some early fights in Argentina. I don't see that as relevant to his standing as a middleweight against other middleweights.

 

Wepner?

No comparison to Lewis or the Klitschko's, or even to Joshua or Wilder or Fury.

The bottom line on Liston against big fellows is that he only fought two men over 220 lbs., Wepner at 226 and Zech at 221. The much smaller Marciano also stopped two men of such size, Shklor at 220 and Wilson at 229. Marciano actually took fewer rounds although he was young while Liston was old. I don't actually see a wide gap in record between Marciano's victims and Liston's.

None of them compare to the modern super-heavyweights.

 

Arbitrary goal posts.
Liston vs. Wepner was his very last fight.
Any perceived limitation isn’t indicative of his capability at his best.