The Quality of Marciano's Opponents

Bought the Fury v Usyk fight and watched it this morning. So pleased Usyk got the nod.Fury and his camp showed their usual lack of class,and his joke of a Father should be banned from public events.

 

Brilliant

 

Although I rarely agree w/ Atlas on his pre-fight predictions, I liked what he said about alexander. "He knows how to win fights"

Sure seems like a skill that is not even acknowledged today. But where are Larry Holmes and Carlos Monzon without that trait? Answer---same as Usyk. It is like comparing a puncher to a world class finisher. Who gets the results in big fights? Right--the finisher.

 

Gilliam had just beaten Bob Baker and Nino Valdes. Wallace blew him out by KO at about the same time. Observers who were there were impressed. Over his career Gilliam also defeated Leonard Morrow, Omelio Agramonte, Rocky Jones, Hein Ten Hoff, and Willie Bean. He was clearly a tough gatekeeper type.

James was coming off a win over Rex Layne when Wallace stopped him. He would later have some other impressive wins, although erratic. His career more or less ended when he KO'd 1952 Olympic champion Ed Sanders and Sanders died. James only had one more fight before retiring.

I respect the contemporary ratings because the people who made them were there and watching the fights and the fighters. They were certainly better judges than anyone 70 years later who probably has never, or very rarely, seen Gilliam or James fight.

 

“many”

Can you show all these newspapers who scored for Valdes or was that statement simply apocryphal?

 

I think it useful to note that the best fighter in the world today, Usyk, is 37 and has had 22 pro fights, but 350 amateur fights.

I don't think there is much doubt Usyk has had more rounds of boxing overall than Walcott. So where does this put the "wear and tear" argument.

Usyk has also proved that a skilled little man can handle much bigger men.

It is a hard sell to me after watching the Usyk-Fury fight that Usyk could not take Fury's punches better than Fury could take Usyk's despite Usyk being about 15% lighter. Fury also impressed me as being sloppy on defense, relying on his height rather than a high guard or head movement. It failed against an aggressive fighter with reasonably fast hands.

I have long believed these size critiques often overlook skill and especially skill applied to combating a bigger man. The little guy has to take it to the big fellow like Usyk did.

 

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I added this up and might be slightly off, but I got
58 for Walcott
23 for Louis
1 draw
1 disputed between draw and Walcott

 

I haven't seen them fight but I do have the 50' Rings to read and form an opinion from.
James was never more than a journeyman.
Stopped by Lowry 69-63-10
Stopped by Thomas 12-11-2
Stopped by Hall 21-9-5
Lost to Walker 17-8-7
Kod in2 rds by Baker
Layne was never the same after the Marciano fight.
Wallace's claim to fame is looking like Joe Louis and getting a split dec over Gilliam, who lost 2 out of 3 of his fights with Baker.
I think you are trying to make concrete without cement here.

 

I have long believed a man 200lbs plus is big enough for anyone if he is good enough.

If Fury was 6'3" he would not be a major factor in the division ,imo.

 

Just out of curiosity.
What would be a reasonable equivalency between amateur and professional bouts.
Just cold numbers? 12 rounds vs 3 rounds?.
Then 350 amateur fights would be divided by 4 = 87,5 professional fights.

But cold numbers doesn't take into account the exponential accumulation of wear and tear for going 12 rounds.
Also it doesn't take into consideration the advantages of protective gear in amateur boxing, like headguard or shock absorbing gloves.

Thus, what would be a reasonable equivalency between amateur and professional fights?

 

This isn’t a fair take nor is it correct. 1950s were a tough era. People crap on many of the fighters for having losses but it’s prob the most active decade of contenders fighting contenders. We have had posts about this. Men had to earn their spot and had to keep earning their ranking.
Layne was a solid contender with a top five wins just as good as almost any contender ever (is this not how we judge people?) he was prime and Rocky destroyed him.
Louis was on a win streak and getting back to form despite being old.
Archie Moore was at the pinnacle of his career. This can not be argued. He was the best version of himself. His style wasn’t precedent on athleticism.
Walcott and Charles were on the down side but obviously still extremely skilled and dangerous.
Lastarza and Matthews were skilled fighters that were prime but protected with only a few good wins a piece.
Marciano’s five best wins stack up w anyone’s in history not named Ali in the HW division
Walcott x2
Archie Moore
Charles x2
Joe Louis
Rex Layne
When u breakdown fighters careers they don’t often have this good of scalps

 

Louis was not "getting back to form"he was getting by with the remnants of his jab,He himself said his last good fight was a

Layne has a highly controversial win over Charles and a win over Walcott.He was stopped 6 times and floored multiple times.
Louis was not coming back into form he was getting by with the remnants of his jab and had been kept away from punchers,he said himself his last good fight was against Mauriello 5 years earlier.
Moore was not prime, he was 41 years old and stated his legs were gone for the Marciano fight.
No boxer is prime at 41.Watch Moore in his fights in Australia and compare his movement with that in the Marciano fight.

 

So either Marciano was beating dangerous fighters or Walcott and Charles were SO old, Marciano was beating nothing but 1980 Alis in his title fights and everyone else must really suck if they could not knock off these old coots to get a title shot.

 

Actually Gilliam lost 4 of 5 to Baker. But most of them were close, which is why they were matched five times.

Wallace stopped Gilliam in four. Which those present thought impressive. Valdes lost his only fight with Gilliam. Gilliam also beat Baker once and fought him closely enough that they had five bouts.

All listing defeats proves is that there was a lot of depth of good fighters and they were fighting each other. A fighter in the top fifty met almost exclusively other fighters in the top fifty. Like in the NFL or NBA where the best play exclusively the best, everyone or almost everyone suffers defeats, and fairly good teams lose around half the time. The issue is not who beat them but whom did they beat, and both beat men rated at the very top of the division before or afterward.

"The Ring"

You seem to want to pick and choose from The Ring. You are in fact disputing their rating Wallace. They rated him for years and he was rated as high as the #4 contender. He was still highly rated when he fought Charles.

I don't think I am relying on a double standard. I take The Ring as solid evidence both when they rate Wallace highly and when their staff picked Matthews as the best all-around active fighter in 1952.

 

I can't tell you. What is true is that 350 fights is a lot of rounds of boxing and a lot of punches taken.

Also, style matters. A guy like Walcott took fewer punches in most of his fights than a guy like Layne over the same number of rounds. A guy like Joey Maxim, for example, seems rarely to get hit cleanly. He is always rolling with the punch or slipping it or keeping distance so that even if a punch lands the force of the blow has been spent.