Marciano is probably a far worse stylistic match for Holmes than Spinks to be honest. The swarmer is the classic boxers kryptonite, and if the classic boxer is past his prime, he is likely in for a very difficult night indeed.
lol no A guy with the reach of Nonito Donaire is not getting past the greatest jab in heavyweight history. People are also overstating Holmes' decline at that point. Was he at his peak in 85? No, but he was still Larry Holmes, he wasn't shot.
what you guys fail to observe was rocky came in low and at an angle, you are not gonna jab rocky all night long , Rocky was easy to hit only when you made him miss(he was easy to counter but not at all easy to hit on your own accord)
What Marciano are we getting? If we get end of (first) career Holmes then he needs to be matched with end of career Rocky, the guy with back problems who was burning out. I think Holmes takes him over 15 with that Big Jake jab.
He took Cooney seriously, trained very hard for that fight and he's lucky he did so. Rocky may have pounded out a decision vs the Spinks era Holmes, but prime Holmes stops him on cuts.
Everybody had a big reach advantage over Marciano, that is why he became a swarmer. It kind of becomes an advantage if you can force the fighting in close though.
Problem is no one Rocky fought had a jab as strong as Holmes, Marciano going to get speared with it constantly . As I said , Holmes age is the only thing that makes this competitive
By the Spinks fight I think Holmes was ready to get his ticket punched. I think it was within the scope of Marciano to do so.
I don’t understand your confusion. If this is ‘could prime Marciano defeat end-of-career Holmes’ it’s not a fair comparison. I mean I guess you could do that but I don’t see the point. Generally these fantasy matchups are prime vs. prime. Or maybe at similar points of development. You don’t get a lot of ‘prime Mike Tyson vs. old Joe Louis’ type matchups. I can see why someone would find Marciano at the end of his run vs. Holmes at the end of his an interesting comparison.
Fair point, but it seems (to me at least) this is asking whether a peak Marciano would've stopped Holmes from reaching 49-0. I think had OP been referring to an end-of-career Marciano, he would've specified in the thread. @Fergy Please specify.
