Contemporary evaluations of Rocky Marciano

This is probably as controversial as it gets, but I believe Holyfield's hit as hard as Marciano. He definitely hurt tougher fighters throughout his career, he just wasn't as suited to going for KOs.

 

Not as well trained. Not as conditioned. Less defence.

Holyfield's power is ridiculously underrated. See above.

And he threw a lot at him, Tyson took big shots, whether he was being carried or not. Shots I highly doubt a prime Marciano could take. Let alone one in a similar condition.

 

I don't see many inflammatory posts about Rocky, only mostly posts about how utterly fantastic Rocky was and a fair number just not agreeing. And I've never seen anyone on this board say Rocky's record was the work of the mafia.

 

That's just it, Rocky picked style that worked for him, and used his short arms to his advantage up close. To say Rocky had a low Ring IQ is jut not the case. He was a puncher and pressure fighter with a good chin, and made his opponents confront that style at all times, knowing he had plenty of energy to go the distance if needed and the opponent might not.

No one who fought Rocky felt he was over rated after the fight was over. Not one person. This includes Ali who sparred with him

 

No, I actually don't remember Farooq. Was he here on Classic?

Many of the great fighters have posters who do their outmost to denigrate them. Leonard has a good few of them here, Redrooster being the most persistent. There were also a poster called Il Duce who only posted about how just every Ali fight had been fixed and how blatantly and shamelessly he ducked bleeding Thad Spencer. Duran has his professional detractors as well, and there's no shortage of people who will spout the nonsense that Tyson was there to be beat for anyone who stood up to him.

 

Marciano wasn't hitting modern super heavies.

I'd pick Dempsey to beat Marciano, he is neither bigger or modern.

 

Plenty of boxers trained extremely hard. Ran more miles than him, sparred more rounds, etc. Results like his are almost certainly the product of a physical gift imo. No different than the physical gifts that elite endurance athletes in other sports enjoy. The idea that Marciano had more stamina because he outworked them in the gym is likely just a feel-good morality tale, imo.

 

Irrelevant. Lots of them who Holy and Tyson were hitting weren't as good as Walcott, Charles and Moore. Size doesn't equal chin, I'd quite happily wager that Marciano has a better chin than Bruno, despite the 50lbs difference.

Names?

 

You are doing a great job as well with your counter arguments