What a war this would be. Both Marciano and Jeffries have tremendous heart, amazing power, almost endless stamina and great chins. Both would come forward and meet in the middle, throwing absolute bombs until one of them crumbles. Jeffries is known for his juggernaut like fighting style and with a 35lbs weight advantage he could possibly beat Marciano in this scenario. On the other hand Marciano was never beaten inside the ring and always found a way to win the fight. How would this one go in a 15 rounder?
First define what Jeffries was. We know what Marciano was, but Jeffries is a primeval monster, who has to be pieced together from the fossil record.
Jeffries beats any version of Marciano imo. Too big, strong, accurate and durable for the Rock. The styles also favour Jeffries, as a counter puncher who thrives against aggressors who come to him.
Marciano because of the low crouch. Not a knock against Jefferies, he just wouldn't know how to fight it.
How come? Jeffries’ style was heavily crouch-oriented himself and he was trained by the most prestigious crouching technician of the period in Tommy Ryan. At times Jeffries crouches as low as Rocky does in his training footage for the Ruhlin fight as well as the Sharkey footage at times as well. I don’t think Rocky’s style would present anything new to Jeffries.
Jeffries went life and death with a C level version of Marciano. The Rock makes Jim's face into tartar before round 8. Stoppage by vulgarity.
Hard to say, we know his opponents like Fitzsimmons crouched often, but we don’t see Fitzsimmons crouching much in the Corbett footage so who knows if he did it against Jeffries in either encounter. think Sharkey at times did as well. My main point is that Jeffries was probably well versed in the style and overall mechanics of a crouch, I don’t think figuring Rocky’s crouch out would be particularly difficult for someone so experienced with studying, sparring with or using that style at the level he did. Especially under Tommy Ryan’s wing, since the skill level of smaller fighters is more well established than the bigger men and Ryan was probably as lauded as Gans was.
Against Marciano or Frazier, Jeffries would be fascinating. He’s just too hard to accurately gauge but I suspect he was an ATG.
