What modern day cruiserweight would you give the best chance of beating prime Marciano?

Excluding ATG's like Usyk and Holyfield, which cruiserweight who has competed since the start of the division would you give a realistic chance of beating Marciano at his peak over 12 rounds?

Please don't pick Holmes, Ali etc. as these men never actually fought in that division. Nor Usyk and Holyfield.

The candidates are as follows, in no particular order:

Mairis Breidis
Vassily Jirov
James Toney
David Haye
Murat Gassiev
Dwight Qawi
Jai Opetaia
Marco Huck

 

None of those, most entertaining fight would be Qawi

 

Briedis, for the ability to box or punch.

I like Qawi, but Marciano, the guy who could hit with either hand and throw 94 punches in the 15th, just out-buzzsaw's him. And the Rock is the bigger man by a good measure.

Haye- too chinny
Jirov- not good enough as a pro
Opetaia- maybe in five years ask again and this will be the answer
Toney- just gets outworked...too economical for Marciano
Gassiev- Good fight but I'll hedge and say he loses on injuries
Huck -Forgetaboutit.

 

Definitely Qawi, since he was the toughest type of opponent for Marciano stylewise and Marciano hated fighting shorter fighters.

 

I always felt Qwai would have been a fun fight but that he'd not stand up to Rocky's power ... Toney is an obvious interesting fight especially over 12 but I can't see him going 15 and standing up to the punch output and power ... he may survive but not win. The others, nope.

If you want to grasp insane stamina watch round 15 of the first Charles fight. Period.

 

great post. Marciano's stamina was indeed insane.

 

I think Toney could deal with Marciano's workrate.

Jirov threw 1000 punches vs Toney and he dealt with that just fine and he had to deal with the Southpaw style aswell.

 

Good point, but Jirov didn't have Marciano level power.

In any event, Toney is one of my ten favorite fighters too, so all well and good either way.

 

I agree and it was a 12 round fight , an important issue for this match up .. the longer the fight the better for Rocky ..

 

I would favor each and everyone of those over Marciano. Maybe Qawi is a pick-em.

 

Seriously ?

 

Hundo P.

 

Yup. And I don't think Marciano could deal with Toney's countering rate.

 

Believe it or not… I can see Johnny Nielsen being a potentially frustrating evening for Marciano. Not that I’d favor him to win but I can certainly see how he’d be problematic.