Marciano v.s. Bruno ?

Firpo was a strong hard puncher and he came out swinging haymakers. It's not really dependent on Dempsey's relative size, height or weight.
Galento decked Louis. Snipes decked Holmes. Cooper decked Holyfield. McCall decked Lewis. All those challengers were "inferior" in class, and shorter in statue.

 

Well, I thought you were saying that Firpo almost flattened Dempsey because he was a bigger man. But having re-read your post I'm not sure what your point was. My bad. :good

 

Good post. Somewhere in between is about right, he might have a little difficulty along the way, yes, but once he has Bruno hurt and reeling, around mid-fight distance there's only one winner.


Rocky wins via 6th round stoppage.

 

From the available footage and what is written, Valdez strikes me as a much more confident sturdier fighter, going the distance against vicious punchers during his prime and at the very least, smartly smothering a surprised Charles to a decision win that bests anything on Bruno's resume. The jittery Bruno was stopped in all of his loses when he stepped up. I doubt he would see the final bell against Baker, Johnson, Charles, Moore, and Satterfield. I would favor Valdez to probably stop him as well, maybe in similiar fashion to the Witherspoon fight.

 

Yeah, and I was pointing out that a bigger fighter than Dempsey (Firpo's size or larger) could have almost lost to Firpo too, just as Dempsey did, by being similarly careless or simply getting caught by one of the determined Argentine's haymakers.

But Bruno was relatively crap.
He'd find Marciano hard to hit with clean shots. Bruno's slow and ponderous, how many shots can he get off as Rocky bulls his way in ? One or two maybe, and they are unlikely to land cleanly.
And Bruno's then going to have to deal with Marciano on his chest. Rocky will dig in and land something every time he gets under Bruno's slow-mo punches, which will be often. All Bruno can do is hold and wrestle and panic.
I've outlined the stark difference in psychological make-up between the two already, so I wont do so again.

Well, I've watched Bruno against the 5'10, 71" reach Tyson (who wasn't at his best in either of their fights) and Tyson doesn't even have to use his skills to get inside of Bruno. He doesn't even have to slip and bob his way in, he just crouches forward, creating the angle, and fires off hooks. Bruno was so slow and ponderous and uncomfortable under pressure he didn't have the ability to blast a good swarmer coming in.

Coetzee was an out-of-shape unprepared has-been caught cold, and just there for a payday. He was stood up straight and backing up, the absolute antithesis of Marciano.
Perhaps Bruno's best performance anyway, but it's irrelevant. Probably the only clean KO (perhaps the only stoppage of any kind) Bruno had over a currently-ranked fighter.

 

Here's Bruno v Tyson 1 (1989) :

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPHofYgReog[/ame]

That's a very sloppy version of Tyson, he's really just plodding in, crouching a bit, and throwing off hooks and right hands.
Bruno lands a couple of good shots, one of which rocks him, but there's nothing in there to suggest he'd be able to keep Marciano at bay for a minute. Oh, he might land a hard shot or two, but I've noticed that Bruno was not even a consistently hard puncher against men who crowd him or spoil. Bruno needed guys to stand up straight and attach themselves to the end of his jabs and one-twos, and even then against the better fighters they'd see his blows coming and roll with them.
Tyson drilled him with overhand rights repeatedly.

The way people are writing up Bruno's strategy and "stylistic advantage" you'd expect to be seeing some sort of Sonny Liston type fighter.


The second Tyson-Bruno fight is much the same :

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ov00wRrJa4[/ame]

Bruno has no idea about how to deal with the crouching power-punching style. And again, he's a sitting duck for the right hand.

Now, I know Tyson and Marciano are different fighters but the principle is the same. How does Bruno react to the low-target ? and how does he use his reach "advantage" to his advantage ? He just stands there flailing away with a look of panic on his face, lands one or two clubbing blows and a few ineffectual ones, and hangs on (rather incompetently) and gets pummelled mercilessly with overhand rights and body shots.

 

Tyson was sloppy as **** in that first fight, and was landing even with telegraphed blows.
Rocky's power was up there, and he was strong enough in the legs and with a good infighting stance (better than Tyson's feet placing on the inside). Tyson could have been on 1/2 speed (as it was I think he was certainly slower than usual) and land blows against Bruno, who just flinches and stands there like a dumb ox, waiting for punches to bounce off his head.

I'm making an educated guess using ALL the knowledge at our disposal. We dont have an absolute template, of course.

I think you should be asking yourself that question of what ring event demonstrated anything approaching Bruno's ability to do a "Foster-Tiger" on Marciano ?

But you dont want to talk about the details of Frank Bruno. There's a resounding silence on the subject of actual Frank Bruno and merely a load of vague general notions about "bigger, stronger, heavier" men.

 

Yes but that intangible of power still exists. Watch 2:42 of the second fight. Bruno lands a short righthand that stuns Tyson a bit inside. This is what Im talking about. With all due respect, your short changing Bruno a bit, he was very big strong man. Rock was some 35 pounds less than Tyson and 60 plus pounds to Bruno its going to factor in. Do you believe Marciano hit as hard as 220 pound Tyson?

 

And Tyson mauls him relentlessly for the majority of the 3 rounds, when he can break free from Bruno's holding. The main point is Tyson shouldn't even be on the inside so easily if Bruno was really a good fighter who could use long-range bombs to keep this short guys off. Tyson got inside without even using his punch-slipping skills.

Bruno had power definitely. But I dont see why people are so quick to say he's got the power and the wherewithal to stop Marciano. Bruno was no sharpshooter.

On the contrary, I've highlighted in several previous posts that Bruno was a phenomenal physical specimen.
And, with his dedication and some good trainers, it make him a contender and a belt-holder (eventually), but it didn't translate into him being a truly bankable elite fighter. He always remained a bit flakey.

Let's say Tyson hit harder, for argument's sake.
But I know Marciano hit hard with virtually every shot he landed, and he landed several good ones in all his prime fights. And he was consistent with that for as many rounds as the fight lasted.

Marciano was 184 - 189 pounds in his title fights. Bruno was a lot heavier at 228 - 247 (his weights for the Tyson fights). Of course that's going to be something that would tell in the fight at some point, but with a man like Bruno (who wasn't a great boxer or a natural fighter, or a sharp KO puncher) that bulk brought with it almost as many downsides as it did ups. He was slow, ponderous, he tired easy, and was static.
I'd imagine Bruno would give his fans something to cheer about with all that power and strength. He never disgraced himself completely. But I cant imagine him winning against an animal like Marciano, not in a million years.

 

I understand that but would that short little righthand in the inside wreck Marciano? Would Bruno be able to get more done leaning and holding a smaller guy? We all know Bruno was not a great infighter or great at handling pressure, but how would Marciano, who was going to keep coming forward, and throwing punches handle the instances where Bruno would be able to sneak something in, as he did on Tyson? Were basically highlighting the proverbial punchers chance here because as we saw in both Tyson fights, Bruno got some shots through.

 

Well, I seriously doubt any of the shots Bruno landed on Tyson would knock Marciano out.
I followed Bruno's whole career and while he had the natural strength and raw power he didn't consistently show much explosiveness, or the ability to deliver KO blows against good opponents. I saw him labour and bludgeon he way to victory more often than not (sometimes against bums and fat light-heavies), and the best KOs were usually against stand-up guys backing away. He could only land those blunt clubbing-type shots against a man of Marciano's style, and few of them at that.

There are people who doubt Marciano's ability to take a big punch, clearly.

Bruno's "puncher's chance" was never realized against Lewis, Witherspoon, despite him landing several of his hard shots. Tyson forgot to duck and still was not even decked. The other guys Bruno beat were has-beens or second-rate, and many of them were outboxed and dominated or bludgeoned from the outside. Bruno wasn't one to turn a fight around with one punch. That was more likely to happened to him.

If you want to give Bruno a clubbing knockdown over Marciano on his way to getting mauled, then that's a fair possibility.

I'd like to acknowledge that Marciano wasn't always impressive getting the job done either. But he had that quality of a natural fighter and thrived under pressure and was leagues above the Brunos of this world in that respect.

 

I just can't see how anyone can honestly believe that Rocky could impose his will on Bruno similar to the way Tyson did. That is total nonsense to me. It totally goes against logic. If he tries that Bruno's sheer strength and ridiculous size advantage will be far too much for him. Rocky is going to have to use every bit of craft to perhaps get a decision. If odds makers shared the same opinion as some in this thread I would take full advantage of the situation, and I'm not a betting man.