Calzaghe's and Marciano's unbeaten records

Marciano's imo.
For whatever reason Calzaghe missed a few that were prime.

 

Marciano is a better fighter than calzaghe

 

That isn't the question the maker of the thread asked.

 

I'm fully aware of that. And this is not school .

 

Marciano's. He beat every top contender during his time. Joe fought a few but not all.

 

Then why didn't you answer the question?

 

Their resumes have different strengths. Rocky cleaned out his division more decisively and defeated opponents with more historical value, while Calzaghe probably spent more time at the world level and was a two divisional champion. Both retired undefeated with very close numbers. One might also argue that Joe perhaps defeated a few guys who while lower on the ranking scale, were at least prime. Mikkel Kessler was 39-0 and at his peak when they fough, then continued to have some success after his meeting with Joe.

 

I like these two guys, they retired when they knew they should and stayed retired, keeping their o's intact.
Difficult to see how Rocky could have done more in his time, another fight with Ezzard or a swansong vs Patterson maybe. Joe will always have ottke as the glaring omission on his CV, with the Eubank and Kessler fights as high points, along with his destruction of Lacy.
He won his championship fairly young and kept it for a long time with many defences too.
I just wonder if the rock did more with less if you know what I mean, he seemed to have so little going for him against master boxers but he found a way to beat (batter?) them all.
I vote for Rocky

 

Rocky's record is clearly better.

 

Marciano.

I think it's important to remember (imo of course) that for many years of his reign, Calzaghe was not the undisputed champion, merely one of several claimants. The majority of his significant wins came in a 3 yearish period at the end of his career; Lacy, Kessler, Hopkins & Jones.

It's quite possible that if the late 90s early 00's had only one champion, JC may have been knocked off along the way & not hit the heights he did from Lacy onwards.

All hypothetical of course...

 

Marciano's resume is more impressive in my opinion. Calzaghe had a lot more world title bouts but Marciano did go 49-0 (43) overall, 6-0 (5) vs. Hall of Famers (Louis, Walcott x2, Charles x2, and Moore), and 7-0 (6) in HW world title bouts.

I honestly feel that Walcott and Marciano were as good as ever when they fought Marciano. Charles was past prime but was very well prepared for his fights vs. Marciano, a last hurrah if you will. Louis was well past prime but still tougher than most. He was down twice but got up to stop both of these men. Some feel he lost to LaStarza in their first fight, Marciano stopped LaStarza in their rematch.

Calzaghe had some close fights as well. Some feel he lost to Hopkins. He was dropped by Byron Mitchell but did stop Mitchell in the 2nd round. Mitchell is not a Hall of Famer. He was dropped by Hopkins and Roy Jones Jr. Both were past prime when they faced Calzaghe, especially Jones. Chris Eubank was really struggling to make weight at that point in his career, he was far from his best. He had some trouble with Brewer and Kessler, no shame in that. Lacy, Bika, and Reid... yeah, that's about it.

Marciano gets my vote.

 

Calzage was boxed in in Europe for a few of his best years and he tried to get big fights and unify so that is one of the reasons he did not get the really big fights but JC proved his metal against Lacy (who was the favorite) Kessler and even an older Calzage,moving up in weight class beat Jones and B-Hop(who is still fighting strong) I think he beat them both clearly so JC's record not too shabby 46-0

Marciano on the other hand won each pivotal fight on the rise to make him move up to the next level, Vingo,Lastarza,Layne to the title Walcott then 6 title defenses 5 with the #1 contender and no real challengers out there...pretty solid 49-0

As we know even Floyd Mayweather has people saying he lost the Castillo fight and could be 40-3 but he is not he is 46-0 and we all know its not an easy accomplishment

 

Incredibly close IMO.

I'd go with Calzaghe though.

For me it comes down to #'s most of the time and it's hard to compare 21 title defenses vs. 6 title defenses (not to mention the time period as the champion).

Any given day though Marciano would obviously kick the snot out of Joe.