Razor Ruddock vs Rocky Marciano

Why weren't they able to get a ranking on their size alone?

 

It's not like Ruddock didn't have ability, but he was Ruddock at the end of the day.

A man who got so far, but always had certain limitations.

The fact that Marciano was dropped by Moore means nothing in this context.

Dropping somebody and knocking them out, are completely different propositions.

 

You've forever believed that what a fighter does in his own era (particularly contender level fighters) virtually automatically guarantees or limits him to doing it in every other era. It's an absolutely perfect barometer for measuring resume but it's ridiculously flawed when talking head to head. It simply doesn't stand up. I'm not even weighing up this particular match up or throwing disdain at Rocky, god knows he gets plenty of that as it is. A Ruddock sized/ability fighter is simply not one of those big hopeless uncoordinated gumby easy beats from the 50's. This should be blatantly obvious to even the most casual of observer. I'll grant you a lot can get carried away and fixate on size too much but in this case the sum of the parts are certainly notable.

Ruddock is a limited fighter, i agree, particularly against certain styles but Rocky is going to be coming at him and that's going to be tough. He's not a Berbick type he's an aggressive guy who can put your lights out with one good left hook.

 

This. Resume is good, and definitely the better measurement when it comes to greatness in all time comparisons. But it's not that simple when it comes to H2H match ups. Would anyone have reasonably picked Foreman to beat Frazier prior to their fight if they just compared resumes up until that point? Would anyone have picked an unproven Napoles and Carter to beat Griffith ? Would anyone have picked Norton to beat Ali ? Would anyone pick Zivic to beat Armstrong ? Would anyone pick a green Charles to beat Burley ? Yeah, some did prove to be just as great as the fighter they defeated, but others didn't. A conclusion to a fight is never a sure thing, no matter how close to impossible a victory might seem for the underdog.

 

It means a lot. Did you miss my post where I went into very explicit detail about how there's a difference between having a good chin in the p4p sense relative to the size of the puncher's in your time vs the actual sense...?

Rocky being able to survive knockdowns against 185-190 pound Moore/Walcott is impressive in the p4p sense and shows us he had an iron chin relative to men the size of light heavies and small cruisers. It absolutely doesn't confirm his chin would still be iron taking shots from true heavies who were 220-240+. Huge difference. Taller men can get crazy leverage and snap with their longer arms. Their extra weight gives them even more power. That is a fact.

 

For various reasons there wasn't the wealth of talent in those lean days after WW2. We had an old guard of washed up fighters who got their starts in the 30's and saw the money in hanging on, even putting on a few pounds, and fighting in the barren heavy class. Another factor is recruitment of top talent. How many Jamaican decent boxers were in the talent pool, an area renowned for producing fast twitch talent athletes of size? Fast forward a few decades and we start to see Berbick, then Alex Stewart, the great Lennox Lewis, Ruddock, Whyte, not to mention McCallum and Brown at lower weights, a considerable amount given the small population and relegation of boxing to a third tier sport (behind cricket, athletics, soccer). It was a mini honeypot of talent, a smaller scale version akin to the later emmergence of Eastern Europe heavies. For this reason, I don't take seriously any of these so-called heavyweight "world" champs until the Dawn of Liston and the Emergence of the Super Athletes. Turnip farmers need not apply.

 

This is very flawed thinking.

A fighter getting dropped by a punch that they didn't see coming, from a small heavyweight, does not mean that they are going to fold when they get a telegraphed smash from a big hitter.

If it did then Ali wouldn't have made it out of the first few rounds against Foreman, given what Henry Cooper did to him.

Fury would never have made it out of the first round against Wilder, given what Cunningham did to him.

I could come up with endless similar examples.

The worst thing that we can say about Marciano's chin, is that it probably wasn't quite in teh class of men like Chuvalo.

 

I would tend to agree, but I woudl also point out that Ruddock's prime was very short.

On the flip side of the coin, If Marciano had taken his 50th fight against say Bob Baker or Charley Powell, he would have been a strong favorite.

I agree that Marciano does worse against bigger fighters than other old timers, such as Holmes, Ali, Louis, and perhaps even arguably Jack Sharkey.

However I think that he gets grossly under rated today in this respect.

Puncher on puncher fights are always dangerous to call, but I would be minded to go with Marciano's class and work rate here.

 

Why not?

I wouldn't bet against Mickey Walker taking Ruddock's shots.

 

OK, so let's say that the talent pool in the 50s was shallow, with a lot of old small guys at the top.

Wouldn't that be the ideal ecosystem for a big fighter to impose himself upon?

 

Marciano does not have the strength to put Ruddock away and gets dropped multiple times from the bombs Tyspn took, so at best he loses a UD.
I dont understand all the discussion. Put Marciano against the exact same version of ruddock tyson fought and he does not do any better in any way.

 

Well they weren't flash knockdowns, he got up slowly and admitted he was dazed against Walcott and Moore.

Ali is a bad example because he DID fight larger 220+ heavies and his chin held up (Foreman, Lyle, Shavers, etc). Ali wasn't in his prime against Cooper and was being cocky. Cooper put everything he had into that 1 shot.

Nowhere in my post did I say that being dropped by a smaller opponent means your chin won't hold up against bigger ones. I said in the absence of facing bigger opponents, we can't be certain his chin would up. That's it. Because it's a fact larger heavies tend to hit harder than smaller ones on average.

I have a question:

Hagler had an iron chin at middleweight and only touched the canvas once (which was controversial). Are you confident Hagler's chin would still be iron against elite light heavyweight punchers such as Bob Foster or Beterbieve? I want a yes or no please.