Rocky could dehydrate to super middleweight~

You are completely correct about Rocky being able to cut weight & make 175.
And yes a couple folks are confusing weigh in dehydration with fight night & cannot comprehend the distinction.
But a couple points you did not get quite right...

You must realize that HWs do not need to cut weight to make any division. Likely you just mispoke when you said virtually all fighters do this.

Also I am clearly not speaking of his strength at the weigh in.
Some fighters choose to cut little weight for a weigh in, so I would say most, not all, are weakened by dehydration.

But I was speaking of whether Marcianowould be weakened by making 168 (or he could be below, since it is hard to always be precise, such as Hearns glaring at his trainer when he weighed 145 instead of 147 when trying to make WW).

This would mean he would cut at least ~ 20 lbs. from his prime weight, then rehydrate.
At least with losing a little fat before cutting water weight, it might well work.
But whether it weakened him would be close; & not every fighter reacts the same way to a lot of 24 hour rehydration.
Rocky was not naturally lean, I believe a man who trained down to get to the late 180's would have a harder time with it than those who can be ~5- 5% body fat without any loss of strength.

And while 18% rehydration may be the record, it is more difficult to be as effective the more you do.
The rule of thumb is up to 10% BF within 24 hours, & even that is pushing it.

Rocky could have easily made 175 with rehydration & likely lost little to no energy & strength.
168 is questionable, it would be around the outer limits of what he could do.
But if he lost 5-7 lbs. of fat beforre dehydrating, the most I suspect he could do without enervation...
He likely would do it OK.

 

Plus these days Rocky could gorge himself on sugar free coca cola...wholegrain pasta...and fat reduced sauces made from pesto and pine nuts...and still kerp his strength...his dietician would be making pizza based off a vegan aubergine base with fat reduced mozzarella and a sprinkling of card free oregano

 

The claim that he could fight at lightheavyweight, is much more reasonable than the claim that he could be a supermiddleweight.

 

Seeing how quite a few fighters today drain around 20 lbs, I don't think it's in any way unreasonable to say that Rocky could fight at 168, but I think that 175 is the weight he would be at in his prime.

 

Most people here don't understand the concept of water weight. Today boxers cut water weight and step in the sauna/steam room and cut 20lbs of water weight. So yes Marciano could of at least cut down to 168lbs with water weight cutting, while weighing 188lbs the next day. That's how much SMWs and LHWs weigh in the ring today

 

No SMW would have beaten the HW version of Moore, Walcott and Charles.

 

Yep, the stand out thing today would be a 184-189 fighter in the CW division.

 

If he could have made 175 he'd have done so in his own time.

 

Gerry Cooney got within the light heavyweight limit as an amateur.

Guys like Kovalev do not weigh a lot more than Tommy Loughran or Archie Moore in a catch weight fight.

I am sure that he could do it as a weight cutting exercise, the question is would he?

Then presumably this would be done at some cost to his training regime.

A high intensity training regime, requires a high calorie intake.

If we did all of those things, then he would no longer be Rocky Marciano.

He might be going life and death with lightheavies, who he could have annihilated if he had been heavier

When he stepped up to cruiserweight, we might marvel at how he suddenly started knocking everybody over.

 

Those look like 2 different people.

 

No.

Those days the weigh-in was the same day, the methods for shedding water weight was not as developed and also there was no reason for him to go down to a less prestigious weight class when he was a of a pretty typical size for a top HW.

 

It is rare, but it happens.

there have been guys in the top ten in the low 190s.

 

Fighters have always done this.

It was less common back in the day, but it still happened.

 

Dear The Seamus,

Stop making Marciano jokes.