I’d really like to pick Rocky but I’m hesitant to say that he can trade with that kind of power.. Of course the deconditioned Andy Ruiz managed to knock the crud out of Joshua but he had to take some big shots and even got decked himself before it happened... Those kinds of blows coming from a 245 lb hard puncher could reak havoch on a 185 lb body.. I love the rock and would pick him to beat some larger modern day fighters but I just don’t like him against Mammoth punchers like this.
AJ at 240 pound 82 inch reach and 6'6 in height vs Rocky at 190 pound 68 inch reach 5'11 in height. I think Rocky did amazing with the tools he had, but just cannot see him dealing with the freakish behemoths like AJ. A 240 pound AJ who seems to have acquired something resembling a gas tank, unloading bombs on Rocky i think would result in a ko loss for Rocky or stoppage due to cuts, if a 190 pound Charles can carve up Rockys features, think what AJ with 50 pounds of extra power is going to do.
Wouldn't, by this logic, Tyson Fury hit harder than AJ, and Nikolai Valuev hit harder than both? Not saying size doesn't matter but your argument seems a little completely dependant on it with no other legs to hold it up Charles has twice the chin, 3x the boxing generalship and 4x the elbow cheats and Joshua, by the by.
Your point on elbows i take on board, Charles and Marciano did fight in era where the philosophy of, if my fist does not catch you, then my forearm might, if not the elbow will soon be winging its way in, and if these fail then the cranium will be used as third fist , these matters were not challenged by ref as much as nowadays, Mr Marciano would of course never attempt such unsporting behaviour, he always adhered to the Marquess of Queensberry rules...........Not. Ring generalship is a fair point, but Rocky lost a lot of early fight rounds then winning later, with him wearing opponent down and catching them with his Suzy Q. Jack Dempseys quote comes to mind when you mention ring generalship, "All the time he's boxing, he's thinking. All the time he was thinking, I was hitting him," Rocky appeared to hold that philosophy. Generalship is mighty fine, but a behemoth like AJ raining his big guns on a fighter 50 pounds lighter and 7 inches shorter with a 14 inch reach deficit who had propensity to cuts, is in my opinion going to beat Rocky better than a 190 pound ring general. I stated behemoths like AJ i did not mention Fury or Valuev, neither those 2 are noted as being as heavy handed as AJ is. Athletes in general are getting bigger and stronger, that is fact and heavyweight boxing is evidence of that, a 190 pound boxer is not going to succeed at world heavyweight title level other than on very rare occasions such as Roy Jones Jnr, and he returned down to his correct weight class pronto. I guess the last great heavyweight that compared height wise to Marciano was Mike Tyson, and he was in region of 30 pounds heavier than Marciano and Charles. In a lot of match ups on this forum height and weight can be over emphasised as deciding factor, however i do believe on this occasion it would be, the weight and height advantage of AJ allied with his heavy hands that would see him win. That is my opinion, but like any of the fantasy matchups that includes a now deceased fighter we can never get a definitive answer to who wins.
Sometimes size does matter and this is an occasion when it would. The greater fighter? Marciano. He isn’t winning here though.
For this fight to happen both guys have to exist at the same time. If they exist at the same time then both guys get to develop in the same time zone together. So if they exist in the same time zone then It comes down to who is the better fighter. Rocky is a better fighter. By miles. There is absolutely no reason why Marciano cannot replicate Andy Ruiz win.
I am disagreeing. Fantasy fights are matched on the basis of "as is or was". If one has to throw forward such stipulations as yours it's basically a concession of defeat for the preferred fighter. Countless people took Marciano over Tucker, which was plenty fair and no such stipulations were mentioned. Fantasy fights are tough/absurd enough without entering in such craziness. In the case of Marciano and other older era boxers coming thru in the present era may well have been a disadvantage, particularly for the non heavyweights. It's silly to even hypothesize unless of course it was a thread as such - more so as a general rule than X vs Y.
Marciano has 6 votes? Joshua would not win by decision because if Marciano could make it that far he could win by knockout. I think Joshua lands a right hand somewhere along the way or several and maybe and uppercut and lifts Rocky off the ground. Rocky weighed how much? Marciano was not a heavyweight by todays standard. I think Rocky was dominant but he really is overrated a bit. Put him into context of 190 or 200 pounds. Rocky against Frazier who fought Ali is a good one. He fought Ali in the simulation in 1969, and I think they picked Marciano to win.. Which I don't think would happen. Same weight? Different story.
At the end of the day, we all saw Joshua against Ruiz. It took him two fights to overcome the problem of a short puncher with barely 20% of Marcianos work rate. The guy was short and fat. The fight where Joshua came right at him he got wiped out. Ruiz surprisingly hit far too hard for Joshua. Let’s see the rest of Ruiz career to see if andy even has that good of a punch against other decent fighters because so far he has not fought many good ones. In the rematch Joshua lost weight to help him stay away from a very slow, poorly conditioned Ruiz in the rematch. Anthony would need to lose a lot more weight to stay away from Marciano for 15 rounds wouldn’t he?
Horrible analysis. You really need to study the sport better. Firstly, Ruiz was a couple inches taller and has 7" of reach on Marciano. But that is not even the great difference. Ruiz has superquick hands and throws back in educated, accurate, concise, balanced combos. That is not the profile of a plodding, attrition puncher who swings for the fences and hopes to hit any target.
