Making Marciano a lock for the top 5

Isn’t it exactly the same thing to say Rocky, Dempsey, even Ali and Louis are heavyweights and anything bigger is a SHW?

You say Tomayto I say Tomato.

 

There's no definition of a SHW though. In fact most people mention height and reach when trying to define it.

There is a CW division and there are people who never fought above that limit.

 

But the definition of a cruiserweight is now bogus. A guy can be 220 on the night 6’6” and fight for the cruiserweight title so long as he can dehydrate enough.

What other weight class has changed it’s limit so much? It used to be 190 then it became 200..what is it going to be in another 10 years?

Amateur boxing got it right. They came out and said Superheavyweight and created the right division. Newer sports also got it right like kickboxing where the Super Heavyweight class (pro and amateur) is for kickboxers weighing 106.8 kilograms (235 lb) and above which is right on the Money.

Pro boxing is the only martial art that officially got it wrong. Just like all of the governing body stuff that ruined pro boxing.

 

Nah the CW division solved everything.

 

The truth.

 

What did he weigh during his career? There you go.

 

@Colonel Sanders

Exactly my point proven. He was around 188 pounds. So why would I rank him alongside men above 200 pounds when there are a whole group of peers to rank him alongside.

Guys like Dempsey, Frazier, Usyk, Johnson, Walcott, Langford, Patterson. That's who I rank Rocky alongside.

I don't expect him to be competing with the likes of Lewis, Wlad, Vitali, Foreman etc.

This isn't about embarassing anyone so don't bring that troll logic over to classic.

It's about whether or not it makes sense bracketing Rocky with CW sized fighters or bracketing Rocky with HW sized fighters.

 

Rocky wanted the money and fame and he knew it was with the HW division. That being said there i don’t see him fighting at CW but putting on the weight through modern training and fighting at HW. Would he have as much success? No one knows but I’d like to think he would.

 

I imagine he'd start off at CW and maybe finish his career with a couple of wins at HW.

I also think he'd increase the weight today, I'm just not sure he'd be able to sustain a full career against 230 pound guys with his style.

 

I agree with your assessment and use likely a similar criteria. Rocky makes any respectable list of greats, based upon reaching the pinnacle that very few guys ever do. Even fewer capture sustained and/or repeated greatness, and my rankings reward longevity so he is not likely to break my top 5. Maybe that criteria is unfair? But I try to rate consistently in that.

 

Could def see a shorter career. And fair assessment

 

yes these are all heavyweights.

these are all Superheavyweights apart from young George Foreman. Old George was another Superheavyweight.

Rocky is bracketed with heavyweights. You are calling them cruiserweights. The guys you won’t bracket them with are all Superheavyweights.

I agree with you on the brackets, just not the name you chose for the divisions.

 

Tomayto tomato.

Although I have the following in the second bracket as well. Ali, Tyson, Foreman, Liston, Holmes, Louis.

With any of that second bracket, when I'm matching them against the CW sized men, the argument will come down to size as well as style.

For example I think Marciano is a more skillfull fighter than Tyson and Foreman but I don't think his advantage in skill is enough to overcome his disadvantage in weight.

Ironically, a SHW today might help these debates some. Jarell Miller is currently an unbeaten prospect and weighs about 100 pound more than Wilder. Seeing how that kind of advantage comes into play will tell us more as he's an aggressive power puncher, not a plodding jabber like Valuev.

Maybe I'll change my stance at some point. But I'm happy with how I bracket fighters at the moment.

I might try favouring Rocky against a legitimate HW in the next thread where I believe Rocky is better p4p (like say Liston, that thread crops up every now and again) and I might try using the Shkor and Louis fights as evidence that he can hang with HW sized men. And I'll see how it feels to me. Perhaps I'll start off light and debate a Rocky Vs Briggs fight first. And if that feels good then I'll advance to a trickier fight.

But right now this second today, I'm happy classing him as a CW sized fighter.

 

That is a plausible opinion, I just see a cut off in the history of the division where the weight difference moves into being a brand new “advantage” never before available. A new advantage in weight rather than simply the ineffective “difference of weight” it always had been previously at championship level. It suddenly became significant after being insignificant factor for so long. This is era related. So we have to ask would those champions be the same fighter if they came along before a weight difference became a significant issue at all?

with comparison between eras where one fighter comes from a time after the cut off, where they benefited from becoming great and 230, the big issue then becomes “era advantage” because you can’t count against an older fighter what he didn’t have access to in his own time.

Therefore I would match those guys with Marciano as if they were raised in Marcianos era without modern advances.

Again, because of the timeframe, when Rocky was around, there was no issue with weight as advantage. That came later. So of course we can match Marciano safly with heavyweights 30 pound heavier so long as they come from the period before the advances that made weight difference viable at championship level over 190lb.

 

I disagree with almost every word here.