Rocky Marciano is so underated and underappreciated

I think Emanuel Steward was spot on in his analysis of Rocky Marciano,, he was perhaps the greatest overachiever in heavyweight history

 

By far the most disrespected. I think people just have a hard time with his size...how fathoming a short light weighted man with a tiny reach with a come forward awkward style could wipe out anyone is tough for people to comprehend. If Rocky were fifty pounds over weight he would be considered great to the same detractors...very strange dynamic.
The disrespect is so bad with Marciano that people Even crap on his opposition. Had people say Moore wasn’t a HW...well no he wasn’t strictly a HW and he’s not famous for it but he had close to 70 fights at HW and cleaned out the young dangerous prime portion of the division that many avoided. Finishes w a record of like 64-4-2 or something with those four losses coming as an old men to Rocky, Ali, Patterson and Bivins when he was young (revenged that loss several times).
Crap on Charles, Walcott, and especially Layne...think Layne personally attacked some fellows grandfathers in here.
Marciano had his flaws but was no less great then Liston, Lewis, Wlad, Holmes, Foreman etc. not quite on the Ali or Louis level though in my opinion

 

He was voted 5th greatest in my semirecent poll lol, and people like Seamus, Pat M and McVey don't have him top 10, I had to talk George Crowcroft into putting him in the top 10, meanwhile noone here ranks him as the goat at heavyweight, not Gazelle Punch, nor SuzieQ49, nor I. Pat M even went as far as to quote he has "no outstanding physical traits". (Apparently even his legendary stamina wasn't outstanding, not to mention his strength).

The overall bias against Marciano is massive outside of the forum, but even inside the forum there's a slight bias against him. As Janitor said, the "Rockistas" are usually only active in defense for him.

 

Note: I didn't see this comment when I made my reply

Please have mercy on me

 

I think having him outside the top 10 is undefendable but that's just my own perspective, I know you said there are about 12 Heavyweights worthy of the #3 spot, I disagree, I think it's primarily between Foreman, Holmes and Marciano

 

Matt guys pretty smart

 

As others have pointed out, there is a very broad spectrum of opinions on this particular fighter.

Among those positions, there are two groups in particular, who are guilty of under rating him.

The first group are those who overvalue size as an attribute in a heavyweight boxer. They often respect Marciano as a fighter, and sometimes even give him a good pound for pound write up, but feel that they cannot back him very strongly against big heavyweights.

The second group are the anti Marciano fanatics, who will cross the street to pick a fight on this issue, and often have unpleasant racial undertones to their argument. If you produced footage of Marciano walking on water, this group would say that it just proved that he couldn't swim!

 

I agree with your sentiment, but i do have reservations about your closing it. There has been nothing written which is racist or personally abusive when compared to other threads which have been allowed to continue. It's just that you don't like its content. To me, that would be high-handed and arbitrary, and it would be infuriating to me if I was passionate about the issue. We all can choose to ignore the thread, after all, and allow those who want to rail on about the pros and cons of Rocky's career to continue to do so in their own little corner of the universe. Just sayin.'