Any pre-Sullivan fighters you would pick over Marciano under modern rules?

None in a word.

It is hard to imagine any fighter who was not a Queensbury specialist beating Marciano.

 

Well despite Marciano not being a specialist in fighting truly within the rules of the Marquess, but pre Sullivan fighters had the grappling elements to their game, so that would not be unlike taking a MMA fighter and putting him in a bout against the World Heavyweight Champion under MoQ rules.

So no not picking a pre Sullivan fighter over Rocky in modern era rules.

 

I don't think I could pick any. You couldn't fight like Marciano bareknuckle, so they'd have a ton of trouble knowing how to deal with it. But even ignoring stylistic issues, the talent pool was a lot shallower for bareknuckle. Through a lot of it's history it was basically just England, and it had several long periods were the sport really fell into obscurity, and later on there was a lot of cheating, nonsense, and legal issues.

It might be more interesting to say have Tom Cribb vs Rocky Marciano, under the rules Cribb fought under. I'll let other people think about that

 

Physically they would be fairly evenly matched.

 

Not a chance.

He'd probably be called "The Brockton Giant" because of his size advantage over most of the other guys and from there things go downhill for the pre-Sullivan field. When I look at the pictures from that era I'm struck by how pudgy or skinny some of these guys are. Its like conditioning never existed back then.

He goes through them like a bull.

 

With the exception of Joe Louis, there aren't any pre-marciano fighters I'd pick to beat Marciano lol

 

Ironic, since Sullivan's average opponent, and Sullivan himself, all weigh more than Marciano.

 

Yes, but:

Sullivan was a big lad for the times.

Marciano boiled himself down to be as light as possible.

Moreover, you are wrong. These are the weights for Sullivan's key opponents:

Corbett 178lb
Cardiff 185lb
Burke 170lb
Mitchell 150lb
McCaffrey 167lb

Marciano himself was typically 185lb and shredded.

 

Yeah but

205 John Laflin
190 Dan Harry
195 Morris Hefey
201 Herbert Maori Slade
194 Henry Higgins
215 Jack Burns
200 Fred Crossley

And finally

300 Sylvester Le Gouriff

Their records don't look too impressive but don't forget, many of them have unrecorded fights or were transitioning from bareknuckle

 

There have always been big heavyweights.

They were just fewer and further between previously, but they were always there.

There was not a Lennox Lewis in the 1860s, or 1950s, but there could have been!

It would have been no stranger than there being a Joe Louis!

 

I looked for the weights of some of those guys and can't find them on boxrec.

So they may have lost even more fights than they did?

In other news, just wait until I tell you about a guy called Dustin Nichols :O

 

Boxrec is not a good source to understand the transition period of bareknuckle and gloved boxing.