If Marciano Had Fought Valdes,Baker,& Henry?

especially early & late Career Loses, always not only expected, but also understandingly accepted... different days.

 

I don’t care about what their ranking was. If Cockell and LaStarza were ranked near the top wow that would indicate the lack of talent was stunning. And you can’t prove that Marciano was great because he beat them and their good after all cause they gave him a tough fight. Give me one good black fighter in his prime either of them beat. You can’t cause they couldn’t. They weren’t good enough.
So yes good black fighters in their primes that Marciano beat well there really weren’t many really good ones around yet. They were still developing mostly. Just 2 years after he retired you started seeing young black fighters with good management being brought along that would have beaten Valdez Baker and Henry. Zora Folley, Eddie Machen Sonny Liston. Then later Jones Terrell and the big cat Williams. If those guys timelines would have been 3 years earlier Marciano would have been forced to fight some of them and would not have been undefeated almost certainly. Let’s remember the only common opponent he had with this newer breed was Archie Moore with Floyd Patterson. Marciano was floored and then struggled for 9 rounds to keep Moore down but couldn’t and finally the affair was just called. Patterson totally dominated Moore then starched him cold in the 5th. That’s a pretty clear picture.

 

Losses don't count as long as you have lots of other losses. I'll remember that.

 

Not what I said, but whatever.

 

Moore was fighting from the mid 1930's, that was the mid/late 1950's, you don't think over 20 years later into the End of a Fighter's Career makes a difference... well then there isn't much to talk about, especially with Archie Moore's Career.

 

It may not be what you meant but it's what you said. You're dismissing Charles's loss to Valdes on the grounds that he had lots of other losses. If you believe that means beating him was no big deal then it really just backs up my original point that if Valdes was, as you put it, "not much" then neither was Charles.

 

Yeah, obviously. But it sure seems to me like back in that era, when the number one contender wiped out everybody, you fought the number one contender, not the guys that the number one contender already beat.

 

I said Charles lost 24 times. Some of them, but the way, to middleweights. Valdez himself lost to several career LHW. The idea that this was some kind of massive unpassed test for Rocky is absurd.

 

Fair enough. It's unusual to see a Marciano fan arguing that Ezzard Charles was a pushover, but I respect your consistency on the point.

 

I would agree that it's consistent to argue that the heavyweight division in that era wasn't a shark tank, and that Nino, although good by the era's standards, wasn't comparable to the best men his size in the 70s/80s.

Charles and Nino were both good heavies by that period's standards, and Charles was a great fighter generally P4P. But Nino was not Tim Witherspoon. Even though he technically was close to that size. Thus, not a major problem for Rocky's legacy or H2H ability that he didn't defeat Nino.

Or so the argument would go.

 

Re’ your point about the quality of Cockell and LaStarza. In case you haven’t seen it, there’s 12 minutes of their fight on YouTube.
Billed as a world title eliminator!
Also there’s middleweight Randy Turpin, “cleanly” stopping lightheavy, Cockell. A stark contrast to the butting, elbowing, hitting when down, “Rock!”

 

That was no the argument either. Good day.

 

But you can't articulate what the argument is, and that's because it requires such a level of doublethink. You want to deny Valdes credit for his win, so you're pushing this line that Charles lost lots of times, including to middleweights. But of course, at the same time Charles was the man who gave Marciano the toughest defence of his reign, so you can't actually admit that you're saying he was easy to beat.