Rocky Marciano vs. Bob Fitzsimmons

http://news.google.com.au/newspaper...8094&dq=joe+louis+bob+fitzsimmons+fight&hl=en

this article seems to favour Fitz over Louis a little bit.

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F00713FA3D5C1B7B93C6A81789D85F468485F9

I can only get the excerpt here, but it seems that from what Gene Tunney heard, Fitz is the only old timer with the chance to beat Joe Louis!
http://news.google.com.au/newspaper...3353&dq=joe+louis+bob+fitzsimmons+fight&hl=en

Jeffries confirms again that Fitz would beat Louis. Hints that he might also!

http://news.google.com.au/newspaper...7427&dq=joe+louis+bob+fitzsimmons+fight&hl=en

This one has Jeffries not hitting as hard as either Fitz or Jeffries. Although it does seem to be very critical of Louis.

 

I have no doubt that Fitz could hang for a while with Marciano, but I still see Fitz losing by TKO / KO against "The Rock."

MR.BILL:hat

 

Fitz had the bombs to get anyone's attention, but Rocky, being a very damaging volume puncher, would likely wear Bob down with a punishing body assault. I like Marciano by mid-rounds KO.

 

It's kinda' odd, but I've seen pix of Bobby Fitz looking a wee bit frail and thin, yet I've seen some pix in which Fitz had a good build and was toned at 175 or so pounds.....

I have an old photo of Fitz doing some blacksmith work on his off time and his biceps looked pretty pumped......

Fitz is deceiving, but I still favor Marciano....bbb

MR.BILL:hat

 

I know exactly what you are talking about and you are correct. BUT...once again it must be kept in mind that Fitz was often in training for fights scheduled to go twenty and twenty-five rounds. That's a lot of hard training, enough to make many fighters look "frail" (especially a guy with a long boned frame like Fitz).

It is possible that even Rocky himself might look a little less blocky and maybe even a bit drawn and frail himself had he had to train for a twenty or twenty-five rounder....especially if his opponent was an iron-jawed, hammer-fisted grizzly bear like Jim Jeffries, whom outweighed both Fitz and Rocky by a frightening degree.

 

video evidence suggests exactly the opposite

 

So Marciano isn't too small to beat superheavyweights, but Fitz is too small to even entertain the idea that he could do well against Rock, oh the irony.


Suzie Q the biggest fanboy on the forum.

 

:rofl:rofl:rofl

old timers will always get hammered by the newer and more technically advanced boxers who came way after them.
Like it or not, boxing did evolve and there's no way that a great HW champion at the turn of the last century would beat a great HW champion that came in some 50 years latter....boxing does advance and the vids are the testament for it.
That's why in comparisons, old time greats are best to be let where they belong...and that's in their era.

 

For all Marciano's strengths, he is not normaly described as being "technicalyu advanced".

 

Exactly, it's hilarious considering that Fitz overcame huge size advantages with solid regularity unlike rocky

"eavyweight champion of the world.....and i'm only a bleeding middleweight!"-Bob Fitzsimmons

 

I see what you mean, Charles, Walcott and Moore all had a **** defense and that's why Rocky could land on them. That's why Hopkins and Toney study tapes of them, so they know how not to defend themselves

 

James Toney disagrees with this statement

 

Rocky took an awful long time to land on cleanly on these guys, and wear them out and stop them. Note the role particularly that fatigue played. And Fitzsimmons almost certainly hit harder than all three of these, imo. Either way, even if he was only equally as good and hit equally as hard, these three fights suggest that it would go down to the wire, not the other way around, as all were very close fights.

Well except for Walcott II, but i dare say that Joes Defence was pretty **** that day.

 

Tommy Loughran also.

Interesting.