Could Marciani carry Holmes jock strap? Holmes vs Marciano

Holmes's opposition is not exactly the strong point of his resume.

It is every inch a quantity over quality resume.

 

I suppose it is weird lol.Obviously having a 68inch reach is a huge advantage against Holmes who has an 81inch one! Then too Holmes has 4.5inches more height ,and about30lbs in weight.Yeah, on second thoughts Larry has no chance here!

 

Prime Tyson? Come on. I dont even know what to say to that. Watch round 1 of tyson biggs. To catch up to a "mover" with olympic level amateur skills, that type of style and a build thats that tall and rangy within 1-2 minutes is very impressive.

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Faster than shavers? Maybe but thats where shavers 11 inch reach advantage allowed shavers to land the right over holmes jab without having to leap in like a short man would.

 

Whereas Marciano's top opponents were :
Louis 37
Charles 33
Walcott 38
Walcott 39
Moore 38 [If you believe him and not his Mother, who stated he was 2 years older] .
That gives an average age of 36.33years.

 

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The difference isn't large by any standard but it's there. I just think it favors Marciano that's all. Tyson was 220 and Marciano was 186. That's a 34 lb difference and on top of that Marciano fought smaller, quicker opponents. It's just a fact of boxing that smaller fighters tend to be faster than bigger fighters in terms of movement.

 

Those fighters are still better than the guys Holmes defended against.

 

That tells you all you need to know about the level of talent in that era. Marciano was the ONLY strong young/prime contender.

Compare that to the top guys of the early-mid 70s or 90s
Most top contenders were big strong prime fighters. With relics like 70s Patterson or 90s Holmes at the fringe of the title picture

 

There are fast big guys ,just as there are/were slow small guys.Rocky was never very quick of either hand or foot.

 

That is a matter of opinion.

 

1. Tyson barely used any movement for Bruno, it's universally recognized as his most flat-footed pre prison performance. Both tysons and marcianos opponents were not using much movement in those clips, I don't think those are good examples to demonstrate footspeed.

2. The Ali type circling and moving was not very common at all pre-ali, guys like Tucker, SRL and biggs were probably inspired by Ali and imitated him. So I'm not sure you can really say Marciano fought quicker guys, to be fair he didn't have the chance to. That kind of foot-movement wasnt popular and would have been scoffed at in his time. So i don't think Marciano had the opportunity to display superior footspeed to tyson

3. Yes smaller guys are quicker on average, yet you seem to ignore the other side of the coin in countless threads, the fact that bigger guys tend to be much stronger and more powerful. Something that becomes eerily obvious if you hit a larger sparring partner hard enough to make him want to pay you back and bully you

 

The best guy's on Holmes's resume are Norton, Shavers, Weaver and Witherspoon.

This is really not a list that you want to go round slapping another ATGs resume with.

I would give the edge to Marciano, if only because his opponents were the most highly ranked available st the time.

He fought who he should have fought, when they should have fought them.

 

Charlie Goldman might have something up his sleeve. Rocky could time Holmes and drop the Suzie Q. Remember when Rocky hit people they stayed hit. Not gonna count Rocky out in this one. Charlie Goldman was an outstanding corner man and Rocky was a sponge.

Larry Holmes was one of the best ever but I never saw him have to deal with the kind of pressure that a Joe Frazier or Rocky Marciano would bring. Hard to say how he would cope with it. He doesn't even know till you go through it.

 

Great points.

 

I reckon that you've greatly overestimated them.

 

Just like it's a matter of opinion that Joe Louis was better than Butterbean.