The fact that he was 37 and 38 years old should not be forgotten either imo. I do wonder how Marciano would have done with the Walcott that gave Louis fits 5 years earlier,or the 30 years old version of Ezzard Charles that beat Walcott?
Hell yes. I have nothing but admiration for guys that are handed the "short, short reach, clumsy-looking" card and they look at those lemons and think what fine lemonade they're going to make. Rocky is an inspiration.
Louis, Charles, and Walcott, to answer your first question. As for the rest, you are just showing why he's irrationally undervalued. Is he too small for modern hws? Probably. But size wasn't an important feature of his game. He was about the same height and only about 20 pounds lighter than Tyson. The important feature of his game was power, and, as Tyson showed, that is the great equalizer. Ali on the other hand relied quite a bit on size. He was the tallest dominant HW who ever lived when he first held the belt. He was taller than the great majority of his first reigns opponents, and usually taller than his second reigns opponents. The only real contender HW he ever faced who was taller than him was Terrell, but Ali was heavier. He lacked the power to transcend his size, instead relying on size advantage, ring savvy, and reflexes. That's not a winning formula against modern SHW's. I'd give Marciano and Louis a better chance against the Wlad's of the world than Ali. Wlad never had any problem whatsoever with smaller hw's with no power, no matter how agile, so there's absolutely no reason to believe he would have had a problem with Ali. Brewster was a smaller hw with power, though, so I can at least see a hypothetical chance for Louis or Rocky.
I don't consider either Charles or Walcott ATG heavyweights. Show me a respected boxing writer that disagrees with me. You imply Ali won most of his fights because he was taller than his opponents. Apart from being patently absurd , it's easily disproved. Going up to his first dethronement Ali beat 6 men taller than himself they were among the easiest fights he ever had. Ali re-won the title from taller Foreman, defended against taller Wepner,taller Bugner,taller Dunn and equal in height Lyle, and Norton. Apart from one to Norton , the fights Ali lost were all to men shorter than himself! BTW Terrell was a quarter of a pound heavier than Ali! ps. Brewster was 43.5lbs heavier than Marciano and 3.5 inches taller! Your explanations or not just far too simplistic ,they seriously border on a sheer naïvety
And your post crosses well over the line into imbecility. Show me a respected boxing writer that doesn't have Walcott and Charles in the top 30 all time. The onus is on you for making a stupid statement. As far as Ali's height, in his first reign its easily observable. Terrell was the only contender he fought who was taller, and Terrell was lighter. In his second reign, Ali relied less on height and reflexes, and more on weight and ringcraft. That's where he faced all the fighters you mentioned. And guess what, he was at a height disadvantage to exactly none of the real contenders (Wepner and Dunn were horrible, though Wepner still managed to kd Ali, and Bugner wasn't much better). He wasn't outsized by any decent contender, he either exceeded them or was on par with them. It's plain to see how that impacted the fights, if he started facing top guys who were also substantially larger than him, his style simply couldn't have coped. If you can't see that, I just can't help you, have fun in nostalgia land.
My point was that perhaps you don't afford him the respect that his ring accomplishments would suggest to be appropriate.
And he was very undersized. I couldn't imagine any LHW in history beating him. Tunney or Charles would of had the best chance. But I think he would be too much for them.
Rocky's style is far less suited to dealing with bigger modern punchers. Walking through punches from aging light heavyweights like Ezzard Charles and Joe Walcott is very different than walking through punches from Rid**** Bowe, Mike Tyson, and Lennox Lewis. Ali's speed, reflexes, and ability to move and fight behind his jab would serve him very well in any era. Given the size and athleticism gap, Marciano would have a hard time even landing many punches on guys like Ali, Holmes, and Wlad, without eating an intolerable amount of punches in return. The ATGs you credit Marciano with beating were aging, past-prime men, most of who built their names and careers as light heavyweights. Very talented men but surely you can understand why people discount those wins in these kinds of discussions...