The Quality of Marciano's Opponents

You offer as evidence your opinion?

And you are inconsistent with your argument on this thread. You repeat and repeat questioning which rated heavyweights Moore KO'd and then draw up a list with fighters like Williams, Wilder, and Cooney, who KO'd fewer than Moore. Sauce for the goose is apparently not sauce for the gander.

"I don't think Moore hit as hard as Bob Foster"

So. No one knows this for certain. What we do know is Moore KO'd better men, bigger men by far, and a lot more good men over a much longer time. Everyone can think what they want. But I personally would not criticize those who can and do cite strong evidence for a contrary view.

"Who puts Moore among the elite punchers"

Others have also. I still have The Ring issue with the top 100 p4p punchers. Moore is #4. You question his power even at light-heavyweight, putting him on par with Durelle. I don't think a general consensus agrees with that.

 

"Archie Moore stated Durelle hit him harder than Marciano did"

Possibly he did. Durelle hit Moore with his best shot, I think. Moore survived. I don't think Marciano ever hit Archie with his best shot. He still KO'd Moore.

So where do these quotes lead one? Durelle hit harder than Marciano? On The Way it Was show about the Louis-Walcott fights, Walcott said Marciano hit harder with a single punch than Louis. So I guess we are supposed to conclude that Durelle hit harder than both Marciano and Louis! We are certainly in fantasy land here.

But I wonder if every quote will be equally accepted. Here is one from Boxing Scene from Floyd Patterson when asked who hit him hardest:

"Johansson. The hardest I have ever been hit. I don't remember going down or getting up. When Sonny Liston hit me, I remember going down and getting up."

 

"Neither Moore or Valdes were elite punchers at heavyweight"

Just on Valdes. You yourself have posted on his KO's of rated heavyweights on this thread. Valdes certainly knocked out a lot more rated or ever rated fighters and higher rated fighters than guys like Williams, Cooney, and Wilder did.

Personally I think Valdes is a better candidate for such a list than Firpo or Elmer Ray earlier, or Williams, Cooney, or Wilder later. I judge Cooney as a Mac Foster type with even more hype. KO'd some guys not only old, but slipping out of the top echelon, and then failed against the better men he fought.

*Thinking on it, I believe Firpo makes such lists less because of whom he KO"d than his knocking Dempsey out of the ring. Fair enough.

 

Threads like this is the reason I didn't come around here for almost four years. It's just more of the same old ****-ant bickering with literally nothing new being added to the narrative as the thread in question sits at the top of the forum for weeks at a time, essentially blotting out the sun.

Gets old quick, and none of our world famous regular bickerers ever seem to pick up on the fact that they're part of the problem around here.

 

There are 30 threads on the first page alone, and 2540 pages of threads. Why not just ignore what doesn't interest you? It is like complaining that they shouldn't publish books on subjects which you are not interested in.

Personally, this is the only thread I am posting on.

"bickerers"

I don't think if everyone agreed with everyone else there would be much value or interest in either posting or reading. The clash of ideas and evidence is the point.

 

Yeah, the point is to regurgitate the same thing in the same threads for literal years at a time. I guess in that case I must have "missed" the point.

You do you.

 

Well I'm glad you decided to drop in and complain while contributing absolutely nothing. That certainly improved the overall quality of discussions around here.

 

Hey, I'm glad I could meet your lofty expectations of me!

 

But what is your problem? Just ignore a thread which doesn't interest you.

And good for you if you knew up front how many rated or ever rated heavyweights Moore fought. I didn't. Also, while I knew there was a controversy about Moore's age I didn't know about the 1920 census evidence, which is for me definitive. In other words I am learning things about Moore on this thread from my own research and from the posts of others.

"You do you"

I always have and always will. My guess is most other posters feel the same way.

 

Such collective pride at being a part of squeezing out a 43 page long turd. Empowering stuff, I'd puff out my chest and brag about it too, but alas I've never felt the need to argue with the same person about the same thing every...single...day.

 

You have to admire the grind

 

They must be Runescape fans, lol.

 

I'll just drop this bit of research that I did for an earlier thread for y'all to ruminate on... Enjoy!

There is definite revisionist shift to the estimation of Marciano's abilities. I think it is important to remember what those who actually saw him fight, and saw far more fights than were filmed, thought of him.

Pete Baird was a writer who had witnessed many of Marciano's fights. Here were his thoughts regarding Ezz's chances going into the first Charles fight (taken form a 6/17/54 copy of the Times-Picayune...

"Marciano misses shots by two or three feet occasionally. He looks ludicrous at times. Everybody knows he can't box. A slippery eel might score and get away and score again. For that reason a desperate writer might pick Charles, one of the weakest heavyweight champs of all time, to be the first to win the title back."

In the same article, Bill Keefe comments...
"Granting that Rocky is not the greatest heavyweight champion of all time, he'll still have to be a very mediocre performer to be beaten by a man like Charles... Marciano is no superman. I believe Tunney could have cut him down for a technical kayo, and Louis at his best would have stabbed him off and cut him up and beat him."

From the Boston Daily Record, 9/15/1954...
"fights still excite me, but this will not prevent me from thinking and saying that the giants of the twenties had better sparring partners than either Rocky Marciano or Ezzard Charles. Yet mediocrities... can stage thunderous fights, as Marciano proved against Jersey Joe Walcott... or it could be as deplorable as the second Marciano-Walcott embezzlement, when they took to the hills with more than a quarter of million dollars' worth of the public's money."

I have more quotes to share but in a dozen articles read so far, I don't see a single mention of defensive wizardry, of great balance, speed or footwork. What I see repeated over and over again is that he had weak opponents, old opponents and prevailed due to stamina and durability, tho some mention his power, too.

 

Just rewatched Marciano v Layne. Layne was the favourite, had beaten world class opposition and was the bigger man.

Some observations I'm going to make with fresh eyes

1) that crouching stance, he has his own version of the bob and weave which isn't the same as peekaboo at all. It seems his sole intention is to get his head on his opponents chest.

2) in close, Marciano will beat almost anyone to the punch because he has shorter arms. He might look slow in comparison to Moore, Charles and Walcott, but I'd say most HW fighters look slow compared to them also, he isn't a slow fighter imo.

3) the over hand fights are thrown will full power, he actually tries knocking you out with every single punch he throws, which is mental for a HW fighter.

Could I imagine him doing this to Fury. Fury has a killer right uppercut, and he can really dig to the body. And he outweighs Rocky by 80 pounds. But he outweighed Usyk by 40 pounds and wasn't able to stop Usyk from walking him down. Does Fury just lean back every time Rocky throws an over hand right and evade it with ease. Does he stick a jab in the face of Rocky every time he tries a leaping hook. all things considered I feel content saying Fury isn't too big for Rocky, courtesy of the Shkor Extrapolation, but that's a far cry from favouring Rocky over Fury.

 

"I've never felt the need to argue"

But you do feel the need to prattle on about your feelings on a boxing blog.