He had loads of fights and experience before he first fought for the title, was 29 when he fought Walcott for the title, then crammed all of his world title fights in over the space of like 3 years when the division was mostly past 32, do you think he intentionally aged the division out by waiting a few years to fight for the title, or was he genuinely just not ready until he fought for the title?
I'd say he was carefully managed ,, he took advantage of a division which had aging fighters at the top which I interpret as a sign of a weak division,, kinda like today.
The latter. He picked up the sport in his 20's and turned pro a year after he started training. That's hardly a man who is ready to fight world class Boxers. Louis and Walcott were already in their mid 30's when Rocky turned pro. Charles was already past it when Rocky got the title. And while Moore was indeed anything between 139 and 142 years old, he was still in a very good place in his career, having recently beaten Nino Valdes and Harold Johnson, so he wasn't old by normal standards.
Oddly no one likes to talk about prime Lastarza, Don C, Matthews and Layne. Maybe because they were white, idk. People pretend they didn’t exist. Layne gets so downplayed here despite the great wins he had, Lastarza was good too. The others I’m not impressed w but whatever. No archie was an absolute killer. Top 25 Hw record ever imo. Charles is arguably the p4p best ever. He wanted the shot he just had to wait for JJW to give it to him.
I don’t think it was intentional. As some have pointed out, it’s just how things worked out. He was a late comer to the sport
Both he & Holmes were 23/24 when they kicked off. Had either turned pro at the more standard age of 18-20, we’d have a fascinating What If? scenario playing out. That would make Marciano in title-challenging form around 1946-48, targeting an ageing Louis. Holmes could’ve ended up challenging any of Frazier, Foreman or Ali for the crown between 1971-75.
One of the dumbest ideas ever. Marciano just did not think on that level and did not have that much control over his career. Nor was anyone expecting Charles "age out,"...his loss to Walcott was from left field. And as Gazelle Punch pointed out, he took a very credible path to getting a world title shot.
No I don't think he actually intended to wait, till all the heavyweight s were drawing their pensions..)
People say that Marciano was carefully manage, but the truth is a bit more complex than that. His manager initially didn't know what he had got, and used him as a step up for prospects. After Marciano beat a few prospects, he realized that he might as well push him, and started to manage him carefully. I don't think that people necessarily expected the division to age out. There were high hoped for men like Layne and Henry at one time or another. It looks to me like the cards just fell as they did.
Did Ali age Sonny Liston out? Ali could have started boxing even earlier but instead he waited till Liston got old.
