How great could Frank Bruno been if he'd jogged 3 miles and eaten blueberries?

He certainly had excellent stamina. But there have been plenty of other fighters who've demonstrated extraordinary stamina without there being rubbish about them running 10-15 miles--partly backwards, downhill--the week before their fights. There's really no way to tell why some guys have it and others don't. But from what I've read, I'd bet that Marciano's intensity during sparring and other parts of his workout regime were more responsible for his stamina than his legendary long walks and jogs.

 

You guys cherry picked certain aspects of Marciano's training. The most effective aspect of Marciano's training compared to modern fighters and even many of his contemporaries was that he was consistent with his training. Also, Marciano averaged 3-5 miles a day year round, but once in camp would gradually add a mile a week to his daily running, which ultimately resulted in him running 10-15 miles a day in the final week of his training. My old football coach was in Marciano's training camp in Calistoga for the Cockell fight and had a full journal of Marciano's training activities. It was a six week training camp and admittedly Marciano didn't train as hard for Cockell as he did for Walcott and Moore, but he started off running 5 miles a day in the first week and was running 11 miles a day in the last week. To be specific Marciano would interval the running such as walking it for a few minutes, than would gradually begin jogging, and would gradually increase his pace to running speed. This is also why the Diaz brothers from MMA have such good gas tanks, since Nate and Nick on top of their training would regularly compete in 10K (6.2 miles) marathons. I seen Nate first hand back in 2014 in a local 10K marathon in my hometown and his jogging and running technique was very efficient.

Dundee in an old sports illustrated also emphasized that he preferred his guys walking and jogging their road work and didn't like his guys doing more than 3 miles a day and even forced SRL to reduce his 5 miles a day of road work to 3 miles a day and he also tried this with Ali in the 60's to save Ali's knees, but Ali didn't listen. Ali in the 60's used to run 6 to 10 miles a day, which is why he was in such great condition. Liston for the first Ali fight was running 4 miles every other day, which wasn't enough, but Liston as champ would sometimes choose to sleep in, which is why his conditioning and weight were off. That said I still think he still would've lost, but he wouldn't have quit on is stool in such an embarrassing fashion if he managed to get those 4 miles in every day.

 

No Bruno was much better than Price. I think Price's problem was more of a weak chin than stamina.

 

We didn't cherry-pick anything--we just relayed what objective journalists reported. No offense to your old football coach but I bet he was just regurgitating the standard story that Rocky's brother spread.

It doesn't work that way. I guarantee you Tua and Ibeabuchi weren't running 6-10 miles every day, and they both showed extraordinary stamina in their fight. And you have no way to know whether or not Liston would have quit if he'd been run/jogged/walked more miles per day. Also, just curious but what are your sources for Ali running 6-10 miles every day?

 

Are you talking about Peter Marciano because if so Peter was a kid during Marciano's career. My coach on the other hand had no financial interest in hyping Marciano and only cared about effective training methods and knew Marciano before Marciano ever turned pro. My Coach also worked with Reggie Bush in 2003 and said Bush had a similar work ethic to Marciano.

My coach had detailed journals detailing everyday of Marciano's camp down to everything Marciano ate to even how much water he drank for the Cockell fight and even had some high 8 footage and pictures with Marciano training. If he wasn't deceased I'd ask him to share some footage, since Tucciarone (my coach) and Rocky were good friends going back to their army days. That said he even implemented some aspects of Marciano's training into our football training regiment and took us to the City championship. I made a few copies of Marciano daily regiment from my Coach's journal. Running 3-5 miles a day actually isn't that big of a deal if you use intervals and even gradually working up to 10-15 also isn't superhuman.

If you run 3 miles/day 3 times a week and add a mile every other week even a person that isn't anywhere close to being an elite athlete could start knocking out 10 miles/day 3 times a week in a relatively short time, since this is the exact strategy my coach used to get guys in shape over the summer before football season started and Marciano himself used this when training his own students.

Define extraordinary stamina, since neither Tua or Ibeabuchi had anything close to extraordinary stamina. Ibeabuchi only went 12 rounds once in his entire career and only had 20 fights to his name, so he didn't have a long enough career to prove he had extraordinary anything. Also, Tua actually had pretty poor stamina and it let him down plenty of times. Tua was known for hating road work and refusing to do it against the wishes of his coach's and that is why he was never a champion.

Ibeaubchi vs. Marion Wilson

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Ibeabuchi's stamina wasn't so great despite fighting Wilson, who was 17 years older than Ike and 24 lbs lighter.

David Tua vs. Lester Jackson

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Lester's best years were as a sparring partner in the 80's, so by time he turned pro he was all used up, but despite being 9 years older than a prime Tua he completely exposed how limited Tua's offense was, but also that Tua's gas tank was also very limited.

David Tua vs. Jeff Wooden

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Tua despite fighting Wooden, who was 8 years his senior was sucking wind in the middle rounds and barely earned the decision.

Ali himself in an interview from the early 60's said it himself. But, I also have a Sports Illustrated from the early 80's where Dundee stated that Ali did too much road work in the 60's and that it drove him crazy that Ali would sometimes run 6-10 miles in boots and credits that with diminishing Ali's legs and feet more than he did Ali's three layoff. He also blamed extensive road work for shortening Marciano's career as well, since he said by his early 30's Maricano already had bad knees and a bad back, which is why he put his foot down with SRL and wouldn't allow him to do anything over 3 miles. When I get a chance to go in my garage I get the I'll scan the article and post the full interview.

 

You're thinking of Rocky's nephew. Rocky's brother, also named Peter, seems to be the ultimate source of the "Rocky ran 10-15 miles the week before his fights" folklore.

 

According to Deontay Wilder, Bruno might be better off not running at all... https://streamable.com/2jp3l

 

I meant Peter Sr., who was born in the early 40's, who would've been 15 at most when Rocky's career was over, so I question how much detail he remembered when Rocky was active. Also, Marciano didn't max out at 10-15 miles for every fight, but when he did Rocky would walk some of those miles, then jogg some of them, and then would gradually keep upping the pace until he was running at full speed, which is actually similar to how Marciano fought.

 

I don't know of anybody Marciano ever fought that was comparable to the people Ibeabuchi and Tua were fighting in the videos. Ibeabuchi was fighting Marion Wilson, a guy who didn't get stopped and was in great condition. Wilson made it tough for a lot of good boxers. Ibeabuchi won convincingly. His conditioning looked good.

Tua was fighting two southpaws in those videos, most fighters in earlier eras never fought one, I doubt Marciano did either. In addition, both of them could fight. Jackson weighed close to 300 pounds and Wooden was a 6-3, 210, southpaw.

Wilson, Jackson, and Wooden were all big, physical fighters. Wooden would be the size of Nino Valdez, who Marciano didn't fight, plus he was a southpaw, Wilson, the smallest of the three was 6-1, 210 and a brute strength fighter who was tough, he beat a few good names and fought a lot of them giving all of them a tough time. Jackson was almost 300 pounds, a southpaw and a decent boxer, he would have never got a fight prior to the 90s with his combination of being a southpaw and being huge. IMO, all of them would be tougher competition than the Don Cockell of the Marciano fight.

Different eras, different fighters. While Jackson was a .500 fighter in his era and Wilson was less than a .500 fighter, they would be much bigger, and stronger than most of Marciano's competition. Conditioning in one era pushing/fighting smaller, weaker people might not be the same in another era.

 

I like Wilder and think he's the best heavyweight at the moment, but Wilder is a known bs artist. Wilder isn't telling the whole truth here, since he does a lot of running on the treadmill and also in intervals like Marciano, Ali, and many other great fighters did before him. the only difference is Wilder prefers using the treadmill over the road, which admittedly can be rough on your feet and knees later on in life. Foreman also preferred doing his roadwork on the treadmill rather than the actual road during his comeback.

This is an interview with Wilder from 2014 right before his fight with Malik Scott.

MF: Have you been doing anything different in your strength and conditioning sessions to prepare for him?

DW: We work hard in the gym. A lot of heavyweight guys aren't in shape when it's time to fight but I always come ready. To make sure my conditioning is up to scratch my coach gets me to do lots of uphill interval runs on the treadmill. Core strength is also critical to boxing so I often stand on one leg on a bosu and catch a medicine ball. For strength and power we do cleans, jerks and shoulder presses, often while wearing a weight vest. Our programme is all about multi-tasking.
http://www.coachmag.co.uk/fighting/boxing/3570/deontay-the-bronze-bomber-wilder-interview

 

He says he swims, though. Not a bad choice at 32 years old, since it's easier on the joints.

 

This.

 

Also, just curious but what are your sources for Ali running 6-10 miles every day?[/QUOTE]

This is Ali's training routine for the Liston rematch. He actually didn't train as hard as he did for the first fight.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CEphXuhW8AAiz5u.png

A journalist and former fighter doing roadwork with Ali before the third Frazier fight.
https://www.si.com/vault/1986/02/10...he-memory-of-a-run-with-his-idol-muhammad-ali

Footage of how Ali performed his roadwork

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Ali before his match with Trevor Berbick

"Nobody will ever do it five times because you know as will as I do that people get old too fast. I used to run six miles a day but now I got to make an effort for three."
From Ali: A Life pg. 494
https://books.google.com/books?id=TC-2DQAAQBAJ&pg=PA493&dq=cassius+clay+six+miles&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjcy-PMnYveAhUGJnwKHR5WAT0Q6AEIOjAD#v=onepage&q=cassius clay six miles&f=false

Ali running six miles in England
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/02/13/259A0B1200000578-0-image-m-46_1423839548599.jpg

 

Bruno was more than decent. What weakened the perception of him was how he was managed. Fed a line of bums or has beens then meet a top guy and lose. Fed a line of bums or has beens then meet a top guy and lose .
Repeat Repeat.