The Quality of Marciano's Opponents

No essay please.

Does Tyson beat Marcianos 41 and 42 bum of the month opponents in his Pro debut , yes or no ?

Or better make a poll.

 

"15 fights in"

In the forties and fifties he would have been considered a prospect who might make a worthy contender with proper seasoning.

You were expected to have a lot more experience in the old days.

Comparing Holmes to Louis.

Holmes' twenty title defenses averaged 23 victories each. Taking out the two old men, the 38 year old Ali with 56 wins, and the 34 year old Shavers with 59 wins, and the average drops below 20. Taking out also Euro level Lucian Rodriguez with 35 wins, and the average for the other 17 drops to 18.5 wins. Nine of Holmes' defenses had total wins in the teens or less. Leon Spinks and Marvis Frazier took on Holmes with ten wins each.

In comparison, Louis' 25 opponents averaged 52 wins. Only one, Tony Musto had less than 30 wins, with 29. Simon, Pastor, and Mann had wins in the 30's. Everyone else more than 40 wins. I don't think Louis' opponents would average out a lot older, if older at all. It was an era in which one fought often and got experience.

*for Louis, I don't consider Johnny Davis a defense, regardless of what box rec says. The folks at that time considered this an exhibition.

 

The Hector Mercedes that Tyson actually fought in his first fight was 1-10 for his career with 5 KO defeats.

Marciano's 41st opponent was Bernie Reynolds, who was 52-9-1, with 32 KO's. Reynolds was on the downside of his career but was coming in off a KO of James J. Parker, who would go on to be in the top ten.

Tyson looked a great prospect in his first fight, but who knows what happens if a complete tyro is matched with a veteran who has had a good career and is no pushover. It is a shot in the dark, because these type of matches are almost never made.

Jack Johnson was KO'd by Joe Choynski when young. Dempsey was KO'd by Jim Flynn when young.

 

The above question caused me to consider something.

Tyson and Marciano and Holmes and most others started off fighting mainly setups for perhaps 20 or so fights.

Joe Louis is a big exception. There were a few setups here or there, but most of his opponents were experienced and had good records right from the start.

 

Maybe you should look at George Foreman’s 37th opponent. Terry Sorrell

 

I don’t know how anyone can call Witherspoon a great or even very good victory for Holmes. If Witherspoon had gone on to be a Heavyweight Azumah Nelson or something, then okay, you could give Holmes the Sal Sánchez treatment. But Witherspoon was not only incredibly green & arguably won the fight, he also went on to achieve far less than that fight promised he would. Holmes was a little past his best days, but not by much. Some would say he even lost it outright.

That fights a knock on Holmes for mine.

 

Marciano's 35th opponent


1951-04-30 185¾ Willis Applegate 196 lbs 11- 14- 2i
ref: Dolly Searle
This was a bruising, crowd-pleasing battle. Marciano won handily enough but failed to even knock down his opponent, who had fought only twice in the previous two years. Applegate's best round was the third, which the referee also took from Marciano because of a low punch. Red landed plenty of good punches, typically in the early parts of rounds, but Marciano almost always came back later to take the play away. Marciano's best round was the sixth.
Applegate had won 1 of his last 12 fights.
Foreman's previous fight had been against Miguel Paez 48-15-13.
His next one after Sorrell would be Joe Frazier 29-0-0 for the title.
Foreman fought
Wepner 4 th fight
Peralta 74-4-8 16th fight
Chuvalo 58-15-2 22nd fight
Frazier 29-0-0 38th fight

Marciano;16th fight Walls 9-15-1
Glass Houses?

 

You are a hypocrite.

You don't allow for me to apply how Norton looked against Ali in their 3rd fight (which he arguably won) to Norton of the Holmes fight. But you want to use Charles of a different fight and apply that to Charles of the Rocky fight.

In other words, you want to ignore how a fighter performed in other fights for Holmes opponents, but you're fine with combining multiple performances for Rocky's opponents.

Louis did not age as well as Foreman and Holmes did. He was gunshy and shopworn and wouldn't let the right hand go against Rocky. Why do you try to make this comparison in EVERY SINGLE ROCKY THREAD EVEN WHEN IT GETS DEBUNKED OVER AND OVER?

Now to answer your question, Old Foreman and Holmes absolutely beat Old Louis. Old Bugner? Probably not, but prime Bugner would.

Ali in Zaire did not have as much wear and tear as Charles who had like TWICE as many fights as Ali at the same age. When you have an extremely long career of 90+ fights, you get more shopworn than a guy with 40+ fights. What part of this do you not understand??? The fact Ali and Charles were the same age doesn't mean they had the same mileage.

Charles did NOT have wins as good as Frazier+Norton before he fought Rocky for the title!

 

You are an idiot.

I never said an older fighter is incapable of getting quality wins. I'm saying an older fighter has a harder time winning compared to a younger fighter due to worse reflexes, strength, energy, and the wear and tear of a long career.

I also did NOT say that an old fighter cannot be a good quality win for a boxer. You will not find a SINGLE post where I said Rocky's win over Walcott for example is a "bad win" or doesn't count. It was a great victory and one of the best fights on film. Rocky showed courage, determination, and discipline in that fight.

What you continuously fail to understand even when I say things in basic English is that beating a fighter whose older and shopworn from a long career+wear and tear is not as impressive as beating that same fighter when they are younger, stronger, and faster. Ali beating a prime version of Foreman is more impressive than Tommy Morrison beating a fat old version of Foreman.

If you still don't get it and want to keep getting emotional and misunderstanding what I'm saying, that's on you. I'm not going to bother explaining this anymore.

Rocky fans are the ONLY fans on planet Earth who ignore the old age, wear and tear of his opponents.

And the fact you don't even want to see my punch stats is because you are comfortable with your views and beliefs and aren't open to any new information. You are a biased fanboy sticking your fingers in your ear refusing to entertain any conversation or concepts that you don't already agree with. Echo chamber nonsense.

 

"beating a fighter who is older and shopworn from a long career and wear and tear is not as impressive as beating that same fighter when they are younger, stronger, and faster."

Your error here is taking a general truth and elevating it to a universal Truth. The above is usually true, except when it isn't. Does any one really think Al Ettore deserves as much credit for stopping a young Walcott as Louis and Marciano do when Walcott was championship caliber? We don't have film of Walcott in the 1930's, but his much better record after the war, and what we see on film, certainly indicates he had learned much about boxing and had developed a very tricky style. It is unlikely those had been formed back in the 1930's when Walcott was only a journeyman.

Moore is more obvious, because we do have film of him back in 1940. He was a middleweight mauler back then. By 1955 in the film with Bobo Olson he is a polished master boxer and a big light-heavyweight.

"stronger"

Faster when young? Yes. Stronger? I don't really think the 160 lb. Moore was stronger than the 188 lb. Moore. I don't know generally if this is true. Was old Foreman physically weaker than young Foreman? I am open to convincing evidence, but on the face of it I would say no.

 

I’m not emotional at all. I just don’t think you know much of the sport. You’ve been explained to time and time again that Marciano was harder to hit than he looked. Film shows it, opponents admit it, corners admit it, stats back it up but I’m supposed to take ur word? A guy who has spent most of his boxing talk days slamming the guy? I can’t take u seriously.
U keep slamming the wins in insulting language. I don’t think beating an old fighter is always worse than the younger. Old Moore was better than young Moore. Anyone who says anything different is a liar. Old Hopkins was better than the young. Old Mayweather imo was better than the young (not the oldest version). I also wouldn’t say old fighters lose to young prime fighters more often. Not sure u have a case for that. Experienced great fighters often win their matches. Old Louis, Ali, Holmes, Wlad, Lewis, Usyk, Foreman,Walcott, Moore all fighting well into their 30s. If ur great u find a way. I’ve also explained to u like ur five years old that all of Marciano’s older opponents were still winning when he beat them. All of them. U also ignore the young prime opponents as if he only beat up on old dudes. Beating Layne, Lastarza, Matthews, Don C in prime. Layne was a great win imo the rest who not impressed although Matthews is a bit underrated because of his size.

 

Foreman fought Terry Sorrel 4-15 …in his 37th fight.

3-25 Clarance Boone 34th fight

1-14 Joe Murphy Goodwin 33rd fight

1-2 Victor Scott 29th fight.

 

I think an issue which should be raised.

Walcott and Moore began their careers in the color line era. They were physically gifted but did not have top notch trainers and had to learn the sport on the fly in very difficult circumstances. When the color line fell and Walcott and Moore went "mainstream" and got better trainers and training facilities, their natural gifts came more to the fore.

The color line and boxing segregation is a wild card with these 1930's boxers and throws off evaluation. Their careers were not the same as later fighters who began their careers later when the color line was past and training was much more equal.

It perhaps never became totally equal, but the huge gap of the color line era narrowed a great deal.

Joe Louis with Jack Blackburn was always an exception.

 

Marciano fought
Harold Mitchell in his 33th fight 7-13-3 Mitchell hadn't won any of his last11,would lose his next to and retire.
His 34th fight Art Henri 13-15-1,he had won 1 of his last 5 and would lose his next 5.
Previous to Boone4 and Gordwin Foreman fought Pires18-7-1.
After Gullick 15-5-1.
Previous to Scott Foreman fought Peralta 79-6-8
After Caldwell 11-9-1

 

Tucker didn't accomplish **** in the 90's.

Foreman went 1-3 against his elite opponents (Moorer, Holyfield, Morrison, Briggs) and didn't face 3 of the biggest names during his comeback (Tyson, Bowe, Holyfield). Holmes went 1-3 against Mercer, Holyfield, McCall, and Nielson. Does a combined record of 2-6 sound like Foreman and Holmes became dominant forces in the division the way old Walcott, Charles, or Moore did?

Tubbs and Witherspoon were barely even fringe contenders idk why you brought them up as if they were scary world beaters in the 90's.

Holyfield beat a fat, unmotivated Douglas for the title. His best wins were fat old Foreman, Holmes, and the mentally unstable post prison Tyson. He went 4-1-4 against the elites of the 90's (really 4-5, everyone knows his draw with Lewis was bogus). Holyfield was incredibly inconsistent with a hot/cold up and down career and was never the truly dominant and clear #1 in the HW division.

I don't think any of the examples you brought up are enough to excuse the criticism of Rocky's era being DOMINATED by a bunch of shopworn older guys, 2 of whom were moving up from light heavy.