ATG: Who Ranks Higher? Marciano or Monzon?

Monzon fairly clearly...Has a better record I feel, Rocky has the higher profile scalps but Carlos beat guys in their prime, at their prime weight. Marciano for the most part did not.

An all around better fighter than Rock.

 

As both stayed at one weight I go for Monzon ,because I put him in the top 4 at Middle ,whereas
Rocky just gets in my top 10.

 

This is a no contest for me. Monzon by a mile.

 

Monzon.

 

Monzon, easily.

 

i would say monzon

 

5 people have voted for Maricnao but not a one has made a peep as to WHY he deserves that accolade.

 

Monzon is universally considered one of the greatest middleweights by dedicated fans. Marciano seems to be overrated by the casual fan due to being a heavyweight and undefeated champion. Once you look at actual footage and get a good idea of his competition, Monzon is fairly clearly deserving of a higher ranking. If you're looking at weight class and not actual weight, this is especially true.

 

Monzon for me too but I think Asero is ****ing with everybody, he ranks Hagler over Duran & DLH over Mayweather too in his other threads.

Something funny going on unless he is trampie in disguise.

 

Marciano fought bigger and better men.

Jersey Joe Walcott weighed 196 to Marciano's 184. Monzon would have had to beat a 170+ lbs man to have beaten a man that much bigger. The closest comparision in his resume to Walcott is probably Emile Griffith--a smaller man than Monzon actually.

Joe Louis was 213 lbs to Marciano's 184. To have beaten a man proportionally as much bigger than Louis was over Marciano, Monzon would have to have beaten a man around 185 lbs. You can point to Louis being 37 and way past his best, but 135 to 140 lbers such as Carlos Ortiz or Dulio Loi beating Sugar Robinson in 1961 or someone like Emile Griffith beating Archie Moore in 1961 would have been phenonomal p4p feats, regardless that Robinson and Moore were past their best.

Marciano gave up an average of 9 lbs in his sixteen fights against ever rated opponents. That is the equivalent of 7 lbs for Monzon. Did Monzon give up 7 lbs against anyone? Against a rated opponent? Someone criticized Marciano for fighting men above their prime weight, but Louis, Walcott, and Charles were only champions at heavyweight and all three actually outweighed him when they fought. In contrast, Monzon was the one who fought a lot of small men. Griffith and Napoles were welterweight champions. Griffith, Benvenuti, and Moyer Super-middleweight champions. Only Rodrigo Valdes was only a champion at middleweight, and he was only a paper champ until he beat an aging Bennie Briscoe after he lost to Monzon. Valdes then lost more severely to the ordinary Hugo Corro than he had to Monzon while Briscoe was beaten by Antuofermo.

Better opposition--Louis was voted the #2 heavyweight at the end of the century. Moore the #1 lightheavy. Charles was the #1 lightheavy for Ring Magazine. All three are often in top 20 p4p lists. I don't think Monzon's best opponents, Griffith and Napoles, generally rate that high. You can argue Marciano's best opponents were past their primes, but so were Griffith and Napoles, and they were giving up more weight to Monzon than Moore or Charles gave up to Marciano. I think Benvenuti and Moyer had seen better days also.

While Monzon and Marciano were two of the most dominant champions in history and the only two to have had more than ten fights against opponents rated when they fought them and won them all (15-0 for Monzon, 11-0 for Marciano) and the only two undefeated against ever-rated opponents (16-0 for Marciano, 23-0-2 for Monzon), Marciano was slightly more dominant. He didn't have any draws or losses. He knocked out every rated fighter he fought. Even Monzon doesn't come close to that.

 

Yeah, Joe Louis wasn't well over his best weight at 213 pounds or anything, right?

Also, the "Marciano didn't have any losses" bit counts for all of nothing when Monzon had nearly twice as many fights as Marciano. You're arguing that a flabby Louis somehow works in Marciano's P4P greatness at the same time completely discounting the total number of fights each had, as if that's meaningless.

 

Saying Louis was flabby is not true. He was only about 7 pounds heavier than he was in 1942. He was weighing over 200 lbs consistently in the 1930's. If he was flabby, why wasn't Griffith who went from a welterweight to 157 when he fought Monzon the second time?

Monzon may have had twice as many fights but he didn't win 12 of them, and some of those were after he had been fighting a number of years. Why shouldn't that count? Monzon has the edge in number of years active and longevity and number of fights.

I think you avoided the issue of Marciano often fighting bigger men while Monzon only fought men his own size or smaller.

 

No, Marciano was indeed a small heavyweight but he wasn't a giant killer like Walker or anything approaching it. That does get him points in a P4P sense.

But again, he fought for all of... what... 8 years?

Monzon was undefeated for 13 years. He had a hundred fights, as opposed to Maricano's 49.

And really, Monzon's record has as many quality opponents as Marciano's, it's not Monzon's fault that the middleweights of his era are mostly forgotten.

He destroyed a 50-1 Tony Licata at the very end of his career. Dissected one of the hardest hitting MW's of all time in Gratien Tonna. Valdez didn't fare too terribly well despite showing himself to be head and shoulders above Bennie Briscoe.

All of those fights took place at the very end of his career as well and show what even a diminished Monzon could do, and to be completely honest Marciano didn't dominate top flight opposition the way Monzon did. Walcott I and Charles I were absolute give and take wars won by a hair.

Monzon really didn't have any close calls outside of Briscoe I which was well before his prime. That counts towards Monzon's greatness just as much as Rocky fighting lighter then his opponents.

Also, Maricano wasn't a "natural" 188 pound man. He walked the streets in his 40's at well past 200 pounds, more then likely around 250. He boiled down and stayed that small because he was running 20 miles a day, literally, during training.

 

Whatever way you slice it,Marciano's greatest victories were acheived over men past their best.Charles was a former great LH ,33 years old ,who had dropped two losses in recent figths.Walcott was 37 and 38 respectively and he was in front in the first fight ,before Rocky pulled his chestnuts out of the fire .Joe Louis was still a good figther ,but only the remnant of the fabled Brown Bomber,he relide on the his jab ,and the occasional hook against Rocky and did not throw his best punch his right because his reflexes were shot.Moore was 39 according to him 42 according to his mother,but he ,like Walcott dropped Marciano
Monzon beat a slightly past it Griffith it's true ,but he also beat prime contenders like Briscoe and Valdez.To include Tonna in the list of greatest middleweight punchers is farcical I will concede,but he was rough and tough and YOUNG