Could Rocky have beaten johansson in 1960 had the fight come off?

At their peaks Marciano gets rid of Johansson in about 4-5 wild rounds. If they were to have fought in 1960 Johansson would have been a solid favorite. Marciano was starting to slip when he retired and would have been coming off a long layoff. I don't he would have had enough leftto get past Johannson at his best. With a couple warm up fights things may have been different but I'm assuming Rocky walks straight into the fight without tune ups.

 

It's difficult to say, since we never saw how well Marciano would handle a layoff like that, or that type of age. We do know that perhaps the main reason the fight didn't come off is that Marciano himself didn't believe he "had it" anymore in training, which is telling. Marciano had an extremely physically-demanding style- not necessarily one ideal for longevity or quick recovery after absence. The wear and tear of his rigorous training and intensely physical in-ring style was already beginning to show by his final fights. It's highly doubtful Marciano would ever have been able to recover the kind of conditioning or form he had in his prime, or even come close to it, really.
That said, we can expect he would still have been able to punch and take a punch, even in his old age, and he still would have been one tough son-of-a-gun, a real clutch-performer and resilient to no end. However, without his legendary endurance or athleticism and with what would probably be a relatively inflexible and frail body at this stage, I would have to suppose that a prime Johansson would be the favorite to do him in.

 

I don't think Rocky would have had much left and the fact he couldn't do the training makes me think Ingo would have beaten him. I think Rocky knew it which is why he never came back to challenge Patterson he probably didn't think to highly of Ingo and figured he could win the title again but I think five years is too long.

 

that's because floyd doesn't remember anything after the first punches of liston connected, so he would have remembered ingo's better anyway.

classic case of the right place and right time, ingo would have won.

prime on prime it's marciano

 

Not realy.

Johansen was under 200 lbs, chinny, never much good anyway, Marciano waited untill Patterson was out of the way because he was afraind of him.

I can imagine the excuses now.

The bottom line is that most of the people who try to pull down Marcianos record wouldnt find some fault if he beat Godzilla.

 

Sure, Godzilla was overrated, far too green and suffered from radiation anyway.

 

Telegraphed his blows as well.

 

I don't think Marciano is one of those fighters who can retain his ability after such a lay-off. In fact, who can? He retired because of back problems and had trouble finding motivation. That is something essential for someone with Marciano's style. No type of fighter declines faster than a swarmer; i'd favor Johansson for that reason.

 

I disagree that Marciano was past it by the time of the Moore and Cockell fights. In fact, he had actually felt better after training for Moore than at any other time of his career, because he didn't spend months and months in the gym. He felt fresh, not jaded as usual.
The back problem had not recurred by the time of his retirement, at least from what I've read. (Which is quite a bit.)

Rocky even said that he had 2 or 3 good fights left in him, and following Moore decided he would fight on to get to 50-0. That was his mindset right after the Moore fight.
He changed his mind later while on a cruise in South America, and I suspect one of the main reasons was his wife, who had been begging him to retire for years. His family were also heavily in favour of him retiring.
Also, there was really nobody left that stirred the competitive fire in Rocky. He even admitted that fighting the likes of Baker or Valdez didn't really have much appeal to him.

Yes, he was getting tired of the humdrum of training and fighting but I think had there been a big enough purse out there, Marciano would have carried on. Like I said, he (in my mind) was not past it at all, although he probably had at most 2 years left in him.

But to come back after such a long layoff would not have been a great idea. Even he thought so after secretly training for a comeback. He realised he just didn't have it anymore.

 

He had less reach than Marciano, also.