What weight class would Rocky Marciano fight in in the present era?

Again, you are dramatically underestimating recovery.

The big changes in modern weight-making isn't weight-making. It's recovery.

I've told the story to you, directly,. before, but either you don't believe it, can't remember it, or just don't want to admit that it's true, but Mikey Garcia, who really did kill himself to make the lower weights in his career, was so weak for a fight (Can't be bothered checking which one this time, what's the point?) that he literally couldn't make a fist. The following day he turned in a world class performance to defined his strap before moving up.

Your running isn't the same thing, at all. I've posted these exact pictures before, but, here we are again.

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You can surely see and understand the difference?

Yes, Marciano might have decided that the enormous advantages of making the lower weight somehow weren't worth it. That is reasonable. It would make him an extreme outlier in modern, elite combat sports, but he wouldn't be alone.

It is also possible that Rocky just wouldn't be able to lose the weight. I understand that those people do exist, though I've never heard of one who was a professional fighter. That is possible.

Is it not also possible that Rocky could lose 9lbs and still be very good?

 

Possibly, but without wishing to call you it directly, as a whole subject, the idea that Marciano wouldn't excel at weight making seems outright dishonest to me. It is very very weird seeing people work so hard to keep him from the lower weights, him specifically. Marciano was one of the sports great workers, one fo the most disciplined, but the idea that he was dramatically weakening himself to make 184lbs seems...just utterly, utterly bizarre.

But if he's not dramatically weakening himself, he is nowhere near the limits of being able to perform at 95% of his best in the ring. Absolutely nowhere near. If he was comfortable at that weight (by which i mean not dehydrated, not cut) he could lose twenty pounds. Unless he's a freak.

It's not dramatic.

See, I just don't get this. Marciano spent a decade taking a dump when his people told him to do this. He'd be surrounded by people when he turned pro, who wanted to get him as low as they could safely. That is what is absolutely normal. Where does this Marciano, lacking the discipline to do the very hard yards, also demanding and determined to organise his own training policies come from? I don't recognise him from history.

I'm not convinced this is true. Marciano was in the high 170s two or three times early in his career. Nobody in the top ten now, certainly, has been within spitting distance of this as a professional - or maybe they have, but either way.

Unless, in early experiments, he lost sizeable power and stamina dropping the tiny handful of pounds he would have to lose to make 175lbs the opinion of almost everyone around him would be that it's for the best. Now maybe Marciano would decide his trainers were wrong and he absolutely had to have those baked potatoes along with the reams of steak he crammed into his face, but I suspect that would not be the case.

Drop the tatties make 175lbs.

Do the cut make 168lbs.

That's Marciano to me.

 

@janitor, this is you on Marciano's diet from a few years back:

"A typical meal consisted of a large steak fried verry lightly, practicaly raw, a giant baked potatoe, a lot of vegetables, a pint of carot juice and a pint of turnip juice."

If change out the steak for chicken/fish/whatever (like almost every modern camp) and remove the baked potato you're saving this fighter 500 calories a meal. If he can use his incredible will to handle that loss, he can probably get well below 175lbs by changing his diet alone.

Bummy Davis (where he?) added this:

"Marciano had a tremendous appetite and he enjoyed all of the traditional Neopolitan foods, Heavy Tomato sauses with meatballs,Sausage, Brasiole, Lasangna, Raviolis,manicotti, he also ate a lot of steak and vegtables...Broccoli Rabe and Escarole...lets put it this way he was a beast and that is why he had to run every day at least 10 miles...he layed off for 1 year and he was 250, but still solid"

If this is remotely true, Marciano could probably do MW with ease

 

I've made that post 25 times since 2007. I should stop really, I probably come off as a genuine killjoy. But I dont' see it that way. To me the idea of Marcaino absolutely destroying fighters of the calibre of Ward and Calzaghe is legitimately thrilling. He would be amazing at the weight, he would be in all-time pound-for-pound arguments maybe, what a thrilling thought. But people hate it.

I also just don't understand why people can't see how easy it would almost certainly be. I've had people criticise me for wanting Marciano coming to the ring "looking like a concentration camp victim" and it just baffles me that they think that. Some fo these guys legit do look pretty bad on the scales, but are almost always recovered by ring. The ones that hurt themselves are usually the ones who can't make the weight, so you know. All you have to do is getting the timing on the move up right and you're fine.

 

You're right of course, but if he MUST have those baked potatoes and steaks, the option is always there

But it's weird, because the same people (And it's absolutely not just Janitor) who absolutely HAVE to have him as a heavyweight (of up to 220lbs) also are huge believers in his iron will and indomitable spirit. He has exactly the type of discipline required to exceed at even the difficult weight-making that Janitor is currently trying to put on Marciano to make 175lbs. But I agree with you, he wouldn't need it.

If half of what was written about Marciano's diet is true - whole roast chickens, two huge beefstakes, a gallon of milk - you can just sort his diet, trim back his running and walking, and watch him fly into 175lbs.