Ali without a doubt, his speed, footwork, jab and overall skillset would be too much for Marciano to overcome...
Tough fight. One of those strange ones that Ali wins most of the rounds but they are competitive. I mean, Ali knows hes been in a fight. I take Ali to finally overwhelm rocky in the championship rounds for a late stoppage
The onliest time Mohammet Ali beat somebody Italian like this it was Bonavena who wasn't as Italian as Marciano. Bonavena's Italian like an Ethiopian Lasagna. Which isn't that bad but it isn't that Italian either. If that's what you're goin' for, and I do believe that here you are.
Three thing pal - Ali's trainer was Italian. Do you think this doesn't matter? Did any of the guys that fought Marciano have Italian trainers? Huh? Marciano has never beaten a guy trained by an Italian. Do you not think the Italian trainer has the answers? Dundee spent heaps of time around Marciano. Also Ali won the 1960 Olympics held in Rome, ITALY. Do you think he won over there without beating all the Italions?
There are times I've been quite embarrassed. One of them involved when Tillie Riemenschneider showed me her panties when I was only a boy of eleven, at the local church picnic, by a vat of bread and butter pickles. Nothing need be said about that. It was the best and the worst day of my life, simultaneously, at that point. I'm practically finished sometimes when I get a whiff of those types of pickles, even now. But, you know, then I remember Tillie hadn't been that much older than me back then and now it's just sick, because I'm so much older than I was when I was eleven. Also, Tillie is a wreck now. A lot of things taint the good part of the day is what I'm saying. The less said about that the better. I don't need to go into details. I had been wearing a pair of brown corduroy slacks, and I ran away, I hid them behind a bail of hay. I went back to try and salvage them after running home with my suit jacket used as a makeshift underwear bottom. Those slacks were as stiff as a board in the front. I tried to wash them in a river. A cold river. A river so cold you could near keep barrels of apples in it, to stop them from decay. This was all embarrassing is what I'm saying. I can't go into it but when I tried to bring the trousers home when they dried, they were still not right and i knew I'd have to part with them. We weren't a rich family. We weren't even in good company with other poor families. Except the Shawnee. My mother eventually noticed that I didn't have those pants no more. Those was my Sunday slacks. The good ones. But no more. Not since "pickle Sunday." ..."Black Sunday," as I eventually would call it. I kept trying to get that stain out, John. I did my best. I didn't have any experience in that sort of thing. I was keeping it (the pants) by the abandoned barn on Johnnycake Ridge. I kept going back, bringing things I thought would help- detergents, vinegar, moonshine, etc. Anyways, we don't need to get bogged down in the minutiae. It's too embarrassing. But when mama demanded to know what happened to my Sunday pants, John Henry, the family dog, he came charging into the living room with these damn pants in his mouth. He musta followed me out to the Runcible Family's old barn, there, out on Johnnycake Ridge, where teenagers (like Wendy Runcible, once upon a time, before she was sent to the convent and the family moved away) went to neck and drink shine, eat mushrooms and tip imaginary cows, etc. Anyway, this is neither here nor there. I don't want to talk about it. The point is...I have not been this embarrassed in a long, long time, John. But this is even worse anyway. I feel like my entire reputation has been decimated here. And I've got a lot invested in that. But you are right. All of your points are valid. Obviously.
Oh, heck no. I stole it from Rancid Crabtree, the town drunkard, woodsman and shine runner. And harmonicist. If any of us were ever caught, we surely would get a taste of the ol' whuppin' stick he used to carry around in his pants. But it's tough to catch a kid on a mission when you're passed out, BC. Real tough.
I'd take Ali quite comfortably, but I don't get the stoppage votes. Rocky was very durable, I doubt he'd be stopped by Ali.
It would be a less athletic Quarry in there. A Cleveland Williams like stoppage with Marciano having never landed anything of consequence.
Well having looked at footage of Charles, Walcott, Moore and even old Louis, I wouldn't have picked Marciano to beat any of them ... so throw Ali in there too, what the hell.
Ali by decision. Marciano is not bringing anything to the fight that Frazier didn't, and Frazier was bigger by at least 25 pounds.
