David Tua vs Rocky Marciano

Was questioning the accuracy of your statement, not your honesty. You made a generalization that I find to be untrue (about how serious fight fans evaluate size v. class). I pointed to the fact that, in my experience, here and elsewhere, most people seem to make a much bigger deal over much smaller size differences for non-heavyweight fighters.

 

So then let's get back to what I have said. I asked you whether you agreed that Marciano would be more likely to lose to Lewis and Byrd than Tua would be likely to face serious scares against LaStarza and late-career Ezzard Charles. I also asked what you made of the fact that Holyfield encountered a scare against Bert Cooper, given that you thought that Tua would be a non-dangerous fight for a weaker, less experienced version of Holyfield.

The more that I think about your posts though, I sense that the real difference may lie in the fact that we have very different assessments of David Tua as an individual, and ideas about how he would fare against smaller opponents (rather than broader philosophical differences about boxing in general).

 

Tua had no great skills. No defense aside from holding his gloves high which for the uninformed is not defensive boxing. He had a big left hook, seemed like he had a good chin and that's about it. Walcott at his best surely outclasses him and hits him at will. Really we are looking at fighters of distinctly different classes. Top tier vs a second or third tier fighter.

 

That's not a fair reading of my posts. I haven't been inconsistent at all, here or in any other thread. As a general matter, I believe that size matters and that, most importantly, styles make fights. I take as a fundamental principle of boxing that fighting a front-foot fighter is fundamentally different than fighting a boxer who can also fight off his back foot, on the move. The Byrd loss reveals that Tua can be outboxed by naturally lighter fighters if they are evasive, skilled, and can fight off their back feet and on the move. The Lewis fight also emphasized, first and foremost, that Tua had limitations against backfoot fighters who could control range and beat him from outside. Rahman also fought off his back foot. In light of that, I've acknowledged that I think that Walcott would be a difficult test for Tua, far more so than Marciano would. That being said, I also believe that Byrd had a style that was far better suited to frustrate shorter sluggers than Walcott did. Walcott would be in a lot of trouble against Tua if he tried to throw himself at Tua and fought as flat-footed as he did for large parts of his fight against Marciano.

I have not seen anything in Tua's performances that lead me to believe that he would fare poorly against a much lighter, stubbier, slower fighter who tried to take the fight right to him, even though he's lost to bigger, more athletic men with less "class." I have not seen anything in Marciano's performances that lead me to believe that he would survive an encounter with that type of puncher, even though he's beaten smaller (and older) men with more "class."

 

Greb is a unicorn; I'd bet that if you pick virtually any other middleweight, you get very different results. People picked several OK light-heavies to beat Hagler, for example. And I don't agree that a 15-lb deficit for a 160-lb fighter is any worse than a 40-45-lb disadvantage for a 185-lb fighter.

 

No, I've also asked when Marciano has beaten opponents with Tua's handspeed, power, and chin. I've never at any point meant to suggest that size is in and of itself the only pertinent factor.

 

By the way, still interested in your thoughts...

 

I'll leave the pre-film unicorns out of this for now. Robinson had stylistic versatility and skills that Marciano lacked and he still struggled against larger men who weren't a fraction of the fighter he was. I don't get the sense that many people around here would pick him over far larger fighters but I could be very wrong.

 

Struggling to understand how this post responds to mine.