Ketchel was one of the greatest and hardest hitting middleweights in history, Graziano would fight the only way he knew how and get massacred. Early brutal KO.
Ketchel was a real middleweight, while Graziano was truly a Jr. Middleweight of 154 pounds.... Ketchel and Graziano both brawled very well..... BUT! I'll take Ketchel by mid-rds KO over Graziano..... MR.BILL
agree with everyone here. ring magazine did this in their brilliant "greatest fights you never saw" issue and same result: ketchel mid rounds KO
Stanley Ketchell was to everyone who saw him in his heyday,was the ONLY middleweight of them all...Forget the two available films of him,with the Heavyweight Jack Johnson, and the last Papke fight in 1909, when he fought most of theTWENTY rounds with a Broken arm....Graziano who I watched many times pre Zale was a great slugger, but not a truly great fighter...Result Ketchell by early knockout...
Ketchel rather easily. Rocky knows no way except forward and it will lead him to a a crushing defeat.
Well, to be the odd man out. Graziano would have a puncher’s chance. That’s not to say Ketchel doesn’t win 9 out of 10, but is meant to say Graziano didn’t have quit in in him. On the right night, under the proper moon, holding his mouth right Tony could definitely come out on top.
Basing it on the footage I have seen, which I admit is not extensive, I can't not give anyone a chance vs Ketchel. He looked horrible. I mean, really bad. He was only 24 when he died and had spent a good deal of that career with very questionable training habits according to legend, the same legend that has him beating every fighter ever since to a bloody pulp. The two don't marry; a hard-drinking, hard-partying womanising party animal is just not going to be some beast in the ring. If we believe these old reports we are letting Stanley have his cake and eat it. Although it is minimal, the footage we have is perhaps less disingenuous than some of the hyperbole of the contemporary reports. It certainly shows a man who looks to have spent more time in saloons and brothels than in any boxing gym in terms of skills, or lack thereof, shown. Not saying Rocky was the greatest but he beat Tony Zale, a feat I cannot imagine of the man I saw in the Ketchel videos so I'll go with the Rock in this one.
Based on footage I will pick Graziano. Better skills, probably hit as hard. Ketchel was mean inside and in the clinches. I think a more modern ref would split them earlier than did Ketchel's contemporaries. Still, Stanley was wide open most of the time and not particularly elusive. That's a bad combo for facing Rocky who had rudimentary skills, real power and the desire to deliver it until it met its target.
50/50 Graziano hurt anybody he connected on. Ketchel wasn't hard to find in there either. Could be a series of fights.
