Marciano v Cokkell Not In B & W.By D Brown

Those inter-allied championships were clearly 3 round exhibitions against novis solidiers. Practically army exhibitions. Not profesional fights. As you say, One soldier was having his boxing debut against charles in this "tournament". Its clearly a military exhibition of some kind to entertain the troupes. Who Else ever had a 3 round professional fight as a civilian?

 

Weight Class is a different argument. I'm addressing your selective use of "wear and tear."

Fighters do age at different rates, especially swarmers. Marciano looked declined in his 30s and retired at 32. You could argue all the brawling caught up with him and he had more "wear and tear."

 

Marciano physically speaking wasn’t the same fighter say from Louis to Charles. He looked a lot more springy against Louis then he did say against Charles and you can watch the videos yourself and look for it. Difference is he was a lot smarter and sharper of a fighter as his technique was whole by then. Making up for any lack of spring.

 

But were they of the same level as him? Have you seen film of all these fights?

Johnson’s famous winning fights that I have seen film of are Burns (shorter arms) Ketchel (shorter arms) Flyn (shorter arms) Moran (shorter arms) jeffies (negligible). You can nit pick over unreliable measurements or you can accept the film where Johnson outreaches his opponents. Tall and long for those days He was called the Galveston Giant after all.

 

Now let's talk about weight classes.

Charles did not bulk up to fight at heavy. He filled out. He was big framed light heavy who gained a few pounds and was no longer making 175 at just 27 years of age. We are talking the difference between a very young man and a mature one.

And of course Charles was better against LHWs, he was fighting smaller men on average, at best men of comparitive size. Heavyweight is always harder because that goes out the window. There are no Nino Valdez types that can literally carry you across the ring. But against Marciano...Charles was the bigger man.

People act like Marciano was Mike Tyson In there against Charles and Moore with this huge weight advantage. Marciano was barely a HW himself, he was just freakishly strong.

 

They should not be included.

 

Marciano is physically not the same in his last four fights, especially his last two. As pointed out by an objective poster below me.

You can't just put one man in a fight under a microscope. Wear and tear is obviously a thing, but it happens to all fighters and number of rounds isn't the determining factor.

Moore vs Charles 3 had an bigger contrast between fights had and physical age, not once have I seen "wear and tear" used to bring down what Charles achieved there. This is just a Marciano critic thing...

 

When exactly was Charles an exclusive 175 pounder though?

Before his three year war absence charles had been a 158-168lb 21 year old.

Within months of his return as a 24 year old charles was already fighting heavyweights. Sifting through his record I can find no more than 12 fights where both Ezzard and his opponent are over 170 and under 178 pounds. Lightheavyweight was hardly exclusive.

It is fair to say Ezzard was “the best lightheavyweight in the heavyweight division” though, since in those days the lightheavyweights competed as heavyweight all the time.

 

Me thinks your eyes deceive you or you haven’t rewatched the fights. Actually watch both fights then tell me with all honesty you think Rocky is just as fast and as explosive as he was against Louis. Because that would be a lie.