Don Turner says Marciano was the Hardest Hitter ever

All evidence we have suggests he was nowhere close to that.

Marciano couldn't hit nearly as hard as Wild Bill Hanrahan.

 

Marciano fought at a weight that would be cruiserweight today, not light-heavyweight. But why should this even be an argument against Marciano? How heavy would Marciano enter the ring with modern day weigh-in instead of weigh-in on the same day? How heavy would Marciano be if he tried to put on weight instead of shedding it?

Modern weight limits have become quite meaningless without same day weigh-in. Beterbiev fought Usyk in the amateurs/olympics, even dropping Usyk with a bodyblow. Tyson Fury with his massive reach and weight advantage failed to drop Usyk even once.

Beterbiev hits hard, as hard as Marciano? I don't know. Marciano knocked Rex Layne's teeth/bridge work out, sheering them off, and knocked several of his opponents out of the ring, something I don't believe Beterbiev has done.

I have also read a newspaper article, at least that is what I believe it was, it was a short summary reporting on one of Marciano's fights where they wrote that Marciano actually lifted his opponent into the air off his feet with a punch (they did not specify what kind of punch but I guess it was an uppercut). I tried looking for it again but failed to find it.

 

Yeah...and then you woke up! Marciano was an all time great warrior...I love your in depth research...

 

In Marciano's time, they weighed in the same day as the fight. Today, they weigh in the day before, and dehydrate prior to weigh in to make weight.

Marciano entered the ring at ~185lbs. Beterbiev enters the ring at ~193 I've seen. Taking him as he was, Marciano is a light heavy in the current division.

 

Marciano fought at 185 lbs, CW today is 200 lbs with the guys rehydrating to 210+

A LHW like Berterbiev weighs in at 175 for the scale and fights in the 190s range rehydrated.

For all intents and purposes Bertibiev is taller, longer and heavier than Marciano and yet he'd probably laugh if he was asked how he'd do against a prime Wlad or Vitali, because he'd know how ridiculous a proposition it would be due to the massive size difference.

Was Marciano a hard hitter certainly, could he score about as well as anyone on a punch machine sure. Could he KO an all time level boxer above 6'6" and over 50 lbs heavier in the ring? I wouldn't bet on it.

 

He was. Still would have gotten murdered.

 

Lastarza had surgery to remove bone chips in his elbows,they had nothing to do with his fights with Rocky, as he himself stated in a Ring interview.

 

Marciano could hit hard and it would be difficult for some of the SHWs with less coordination to find such a small HW. The great ones would get it done against Rocky in my estimation. I liked this video even if I wasn't around to see Marciano and don't necessarily agree.

 

Hm, okay.. just said because I heard Lou Duva saying it was because of Rocky punching his arms...

 

There is a You Tube clip of Beterbiev in which he states Usyk would now be too big for him. Marciano scored 46 stoppages the men he stopped have a combined total of ,140 stoppage losses,8 of them were under 185lbs.
Usyk is too STRONG- Beterbiev BRUTALLY HONEST on a possible Usyk fight!

 

Im pretty sure I've asked you this before, do you have a source for this?

To my knowledge the only reference in the public domain about Beterbiev's fight day weight is 182lbs, as mentioned right at the start of this video -

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Where is your source for 193lbs, please?

 

Do you have a source for this claim?

The video in my above post cites 182lbs as his fight day weight vs Koeling.

 

Theres LHWs and guys smaller than Marciano who are in the "hardest hitters ever" conversation because theres more evidence to support their claims. Its not just that Marcianos small its the size of his opponents how long it took them to go down etc. He really didn't have historically unusual knockout power.

No one said Marciano wasn't a big hitter. But knocking out Rex Laynes teeth isn't exactly powerful evidence here and sort of proves how weak the case is. Tysons powers very overrated but he was getting people early consistantly as were most people in this discussion. Marciano couldn't do that at the elite level against guys much smaller. Layne had good durability in the smallest era and hes the best opponent Marciano fought in his prime. Not really compelling. We've got Wilder, Shavers, Foreman, Liston, Fitz, Louis, Dempsey, Lyle Fulton, Coffey, Willard, the Baers, Langford, Qawi, Goddard, Frazier, Hanrahan, Bruno, Dubois, Wlad, Tyson, Braddock, Schreck, Zhang, Ngannou, Lang, Ingo, Cleveland Williams. That list was not in order but the point is I could pull 30 names out of my behind who probably hit harder than Marciano and probably forgot quite a few others. A 6th round knockout of Rex Layne doesn't register.

Marciano and Beterbiev have about the same amount of top level ish fights. In terms of what Marciano did before he reached the top level people always pooh pooh every other greats early knockout streaks and virtually everyone else in this conversation has one. Impressive anecdotes against lower level competition is the bare minimum. How does Marcianos stand out? Fitzsimmons knocked out a man over twice his weight in 1 round.

 

I'll try to clear up where I am coming from. I do not think that it is correct to state that Beterbiev is heavier than Marciano, it certainly does not reach a point where it matters. Marciano entered as low as 180 and as high as 192, with same day weigh-in. While with Beterbiev we don't actually know his exact weight during a fight, we have to roughly guess it due to weigh-ins being before the fight day and rehydration etc. But it probably ends up somewhere in the range of 180 to 185ish pounds.
Second, and this is what I wanted rather to focus on was that this is not giving the fighters the same considerations. Marciano was also shedding weight down to the 180-190 range, even when he did not need to, he did this because he enjoyed that "runners-high". But Marciano could easily have come in at 200+ pounds (I do not know at what point it would start to get detrimental for Marciano to put on weight, but he was not the boxer archetype which relied on movement/speed to win, so I would assume he had some leeway).

As I have tried to say above, Marciano could come in heavier than 200 pounds if he wanted to and he would be very comfortable in the cruiserweight division.
Marciano was already beating opponents much heavier and taller than himself when he was 190 or below. And before someone decides to shift the goal posts by saying they were not elite top ranked fighters, neither was Marciano when he did it.

Beterbiev has a negligible height, reach advantage over Marciano especially when you factor in their styles.
Beterbiev might think it is ridiculous preposition (he is also old), but Beterbiev is not that much smaller than Chris Byrd who fought both Wlad and Vitali:

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Now let me be clear, I am not saying Beterbiev would beat either of them, but I am not gonna deny the possiblity that someone the size of Beterbiev or Marciano could potentially do it. Size differences offers both advantages and disadvantages, not purely an advantage or disadvantage.

 

Here's the source for Artur rehydrating to 193.2 lbs in 2020:

https://wbcboxing.com/en/the-wbc-weighing-in-with-champ-weight-management-program/