Anyone seen Marciano fight live?

I have never seen him live, but my guess would be that seeing him live, it would become clear to the observer that Marciano, even when he looks clumsy, is almost impossible to stop and really breaks his opponent down untill the opponent can't raise his hands anymore. Only Charles survived (the first time) and he did just barely. On film it may look like just another KO but i think if you were to witness it live it would become more obvious that he just pressures, pressures and pressures untill the other guy has no more. He is an animal.

I've recently rewatched his fights and aside from some technical things, the thing that became clear to me is how underrated his breaking-down factor is, and it's really easy to miss or underestimate because most people only see highlights/his goofyness, etc.

 

comeing from the guy that claims L Spinks would have ko Marciano in a round or 2.

 

Leon Spinks KO Marciano in 2!?

Marciano was no superman but come on!

 

Interestingly enough, something like this could have easily taken place in reality, athough not quite with a prime Dempsey.

One of Jack's final exhibition performances in a boxing ring was at the 1939 Chicago World's Fair. At that same event, color television was demonstrated to the public for the very first time. What might our impressions of the 44 year old Dempsey be, if we saw a videotape of his performance there, in living sound and color? (For one, we'd readily assert that the middle aged version of Dempsey was an infinitely more evolved and fluid boxer than the crude looking brawler battering Willard about 20 years earlier, as recorded on manually operated primitive film technology.)

While I'm no fan of Steve Farhood's writing, the one thing he wrote about that I found most interesting concerned the scoring of the Mike Spinks/Eddie Davis LH Title fight. When attending the match in person, he scored Spinks the winner. But later, when Farhood viewed the same bout on television, he scored Davis the winner.

This was one area where Howard Cosell actually could excel as an announcer while calling a match. He was very good at articulating the difference between what the monitor showed, and what was authentically transpiring in the ring. A hometown crowd might make a loud excited racket over their hero delivering a punch which made a lot of noise, and looked impressive on camera. But if in reality, it was blocked, or merely a grazing punch, Cosell would calmly intone that fact to his viewers.

Likewise, viewing the television rebroadcast of The Valentine's Day massacre between SRR and LaMotta is far different from watching a movie film of the action. TV, movies, or in person, three very alternative experiences of the same event.

 

Television announcers can influence their audience by cheerleading too. It is best to judge a fighter by seeing him both live and on television. Boxing is both theater and sport. A ring side ticket allows the boxing fan intimate access to the action more so than any other sport I can think of. The sound and fury of a boxing match looses something in the translation on television, much like watching a play, opera, or concert on television looses something. Think about it. It’s true. The replay jumbo screens at stadiums have the ability to show replays the same as television. If you want to see how fast Roy Jones really is, or how hard Vladimir Klitschko hits, you must see it live to fully appreciate it.

 

Which greats did he watch?

 

From Corbett to Ali/Frazoer 1 as far as heavyweights go. And thats NOT including the lighter weights.

 

That's why, when I tape a match, I'll sometimes watch it live with the sound off, but closed captioning on. If it's good enough, or controversial enough to merit a review, I'll rewatch it with the sound on, and captioning off. Still, it is true that there's no substitute for viewing it live. (Let alone competing in the ring yourself!)

 

Bump

 

Absolutely, yes.

That doesn’t mean that you have to agree with it.

 

I think it was AJ Leibling that wrote that seeing Marciano was a frightening experience. In that, being that close, you could see the force of the blows he took without reacting to them, and you could see how hard he was hitting in return, and get a sense of the man's indomitable will.

 

grey,you are so correct ! As posted before I saw Marciano in his fight against
Carmine Vingo, MSG in 1949 from great seats above the ring...The torrent of blows that Rocky reigned on the larger Vingo, powerful and unceasingly, my dad and I never saw before or after on a heavyweight until I saw Joe Frazier
at the FOTC. From our distance from the ring we could not hear the thuds of Marciano's blows, but we could see the terrible results of those blows...I can never forget the results of those punches and in the 6th rd the unconscious
Vingo's left foot twitching while he was flat on his back...
But soon after I sat about 3 feet away from the ring when Marciano was training in the airplane hanger at Grossinger's Ny ...Sparring with his sparring partners I could hear the powerful thudding blows that Rocky landed on his
partners body...Like a battering ram smacking a heavy punching bag...
His power came from his powerful thighs and torso...