Fair point. Marciano missed the vast majority of those punches but the pressure alone has to be exhausting, especially for a little 38-year old heavyweight.
Good defense. But if you watch the whole fight - or probably even any whole round of the fight - you'll see he gets hit plenty ..... so I wouldn't call it amazing.
This. Years ago Jimmy Carter, who was very good friends with my grandfather and Archie Moore told me Moore doomed himself before the fight ever started, since Moore insisted on keeping his light heavyweight title and regularly defending it while also trying to become the heavyweight champion, which according to Carter was foolhardy while Marciano was 100% focused on not losing his heavyweight title. Around this time Moore was walking around at 210+ lbs and could comfortably train down to 195-200 lbs, but was struggling to get down to 175. According to Carter Moore’s weight didn’t rebound like he wanted it to for the Marciano fight, since Moore missed his target weight by almost 10 lbs.
I think, in this clip, Rocky doesn't throw too many straight punches, isn't setting anything up with a jab, doesn't throw combinations, doesn't throw double anything, can't fight from a distance and is very predictable. It's right hook, duck, left hook, duck, short right, duck, left uppercut, duck. Right, left, right, left, right, left. Oh, he just threw a right. And he ducked. (I'm guessing a left is coming next.) There it is. Duck. (Probably a right hook). There it is. He's going to duck now and throw a left after that. (There it is.)
Patterson sure handled Moore a lot easier just a year or so later than Rocky did. Yeah styles makes fights but maybe Patterson is a lot more underrated than people think.
It was definitely down to styles. But, that said Patterson was a very talented fighter according to even Marciano himself. It was also due to styles why Patterson also handled Cooper a lot easier than Ali did and destroyed Levi Forte while Foreman really struggled with him. Patterson like Tyson was a lethal weapon if you let him have his preferred range, but both were beatable if you took that preferred range away.
