Seriously, could anyone withstand Rocky's right against Walcott?

Yep, Ali definiately could.
Foreman might have, Tyson very possibly.

 

McCall...McCall

 

I believe any man can be knocked out given the right punch and more import, timing and other conditions.

Marciano landed a right like that rounds earlier and Walcott was not even knocked down. The key to this punch is that it was timed PERFECTLY. It landed right when Walcott was in the process of throwing a counter punch to a sort of left feint from Marciano. In this case it was not only Marciano's power that made him deadly, but also his unorthodoxness and unpredictability.

On top of that, Walcott was somewhat old and had 12 tough rounds behind him. These things matter too.

Just look at Ali-Frazier I. Frazier hit Ali with at least twenty or thirty hard left hooks. The only one that knocked him down was when Ali was exhausted (15th round) and when he was on the backfoot, in the process of throwing a punch himself. Power is just one factor among many that play a role in knockouts.


If all the circumstances are there as was the case against Walcott, i expect very very few heavyweights to get up from that shot.

 

Tua!!!

 

1. Muhammad Ali
2. George Chuvalo
3. Larry Holmes
4. Tex Cobb
5. Joe Grimm
6. Tony Tucker
7. David Tua
8. Vitali Klitschko

And probably more.

 

James Toney would have eaten that shot

 

Kid Gavilan.

 

Holmes, Ali, McCall, Foreman, Chuvalo and perhaps Tyson.

It was certainly a chilling shot, though.

 

There are other candidates such as the shot that droped Layne and the left hook that took out Matthews.

 

Very few fighters could have took that shot without going down and/or being really hurt. But it's very hard to say as its so subjective.

My opinion is Ali may have been knocked down by the shot but he would have gotten up and recovered well.

Another fighter may be able to take the shot and stay on his feet, but could be really hurt and out of it, thus being stopped on his feet. For example Bruno would probably stay on his feet but he'd definitley be in la la land. He would freeze like a statue and the ref would stop the fight.

 

If Walcott had seen it coming, he might have withstood it. The vision in his left eye was momentarily obscured by some blood from a cut he sustained earlier in the match, blood which gushed into his eye from the jar of a jab he'd just delivered. Jersey Joe said that was the first of two jabs he was planning to unleash before attempting a right hand kayo punch. He had just started to throw the second of those two jabs (a fact confirmed by Marciano) when Rocky spotted the opening and threw what he called the hardest punch he ever attempted.

The suggestion has been made that when a boxer is in top condition, he cannot be knocked out, except by a punch he doesn't see coming. Although Walcott was indeed in peak condition, he couldn't see Marciano's right headed his way. So perhaps the question should be whether or not Walcott would have survived that punch had he not been blinded by the blood in that left eye.

Gene Tunney was looking directly at Dempsey's monster KD hook as it crashed into the right side of Gene's face. We can see him actually looking at it as contact is made. Ali also saw Frazier's left shoulder dip, and knew he was going to get clocked by a perfectly timed hook. Finally, we see Walcott looking directly at Marciano earlier in their match, as Rocky distorts Joe's face in the famous portrait of Marciano's mid ring overhand right.

In the eleventh round of the FOTC, Frazier buckled Ali's knees with a very similarly powerful left hook as Muhammad was trapped against the ropes. It was actually a more devastating shot than his more spectacular looking knockdown punch, and may have been the hardest punch of Smoke's career.

Cobb certainly could have stood up to it. I think Chuvalo could have stood up to it, but would have had his bell sufficiently rung to force a subsequent stoppage in short order.