Dempsey and Marciano switch eras

Charles-Lose
Walcott-Knockout
Moore-Knockout
****ell-Win
Louis-Knockout
LaStarza-Knockout
Layne-Knockout

Those were the best fighters on Marciano's Resume.

 

Well I don't see Marciano losing to Fireman Flynn and Fat Willie Meehan. But I suspect that Willard might give Marciano a good deal more trouble than he gave Dempsey.

 

They both do worse than they did in their own eras.

 

Different eras. Dempsey fought during a hard, rough and tough era to be sucessful fight after fight. Marciano much less so. Dempsey also had much more fights than Rocky so more chances to have a bad night and lose.

Due to all this I would say Rocky would have the tougher of it.

 

it is actually impossible for me to see Dempsey doing better than Marciano in the Marciano era. Could he do as well? My judgment is no. He would stumble somewhere along the line.

What about Marciano in the Dempsey era?

Well, Dempsey doesn't really have an imposing record--he won 60, lost 6, drew 11, and had 44 KO's. It is likely that with all these four-round fights, Marciano would have been upset a time or two in the short fights along the way,

but would he have bettered a 78% winning percentage and a 57% KO percentage. My judgment is yes.

Of course, they had very different careers. Dempsey started at 19. He was champion at 24. Marciano started at 24, really getting into his career at 25, and was 29 when he became champion. Both retired at 32.

 

I would say that Marciano was better suited to fighting the slicksters who ruled his era, and Dempsey was better suited to the bigger heavyweigths who were the key roadblocks in his era.

 

There is a difference here. I can argue that Dempsey had some trouble with slick boxers. The Miske ND draw of 1918. The 15 round to a decision fight with Gibbons. The Tunney losses. Certainly Dempsey defenders can and will challenge a "Dempsey had trouble with slicksters" position, but all of us would be arguing evidence.

The Marciano had trouble with big men argument is totally one from a lack of evidence at best.

The lack of evidence argument is like arguing that as there are no prey animals as large as a moose or bison in the jaguar's range, a jaguar could not prey on an adult of these species if they shared range. That logic does not follow.

Marciano knocked out every opponent he fought over 200 lbs. and so of course also knocked out all five opponents over 210 lbs. he fought, three in one round, Johnny Shkor in 6, and Joe Louis in 8.
So any argument that Marciano would have problems with Firpo or Morris or Willard is not based on evidence, but the lack of it, or at least the perceived lack of it.

 

I am not basing my argument on the absence of big fighter’s on Marciano’s resume, so much as his style.

Marciano was a pure swarmer, while Dempsey was a more of a finisher.

While this is not to say that Marciano could not beat these bigger opponents, I would anticipate him needing more rounds to do it, and thus allowing them to make the fights more competitive.

 

I can see Dempsey emerging undefeated from Marciano's resume.

Rocky will have more trouble with Jacks though for two reasons:

1) Instead of old Charles he'll be facing a prime Tunney.

2) Rocky wouldn't duck Greb or Wills so could slip up on the two banana skins Jack steered clear of.

 

"I can see Dempsey emerging undefeated from Marciano's resume"

Okay. But Dempsey's winning percentage in the fights he actually fought was
78%. For me it seems quite a stretch to argue he comes back thirty years later and does better in an era w/o the color line than he did in an era with it.

"Instead of old Charles he'll be facing a prime Tunney."

Well, as Dempsey simply lost twice to Tunney, there would be room for Marciano to do better.

"Rocky wouldn't duck Greb or Wills so could slip up on the two banana skins Jack steered clear of."

As Dempsey didn't fight them, the point here eludes me.

 

I also think Lewis would do it unbeaten despite the fact he lost twice in his career. Same with Tyson, Liston, Louis and probably some others.

Yes good point, Dempsey never beat Tunney neither.

Because in Jacks era he ran from Greb and Wills but some give him a pass because he would obviously beat them in their eyes. Rock wouldn't run from them and would actually fight them and if he did lose, people would then say Jack would have done better.

 

Dempsey never ran from either Greb or Wills. This was well understood up until later generations when revisionist thought dominated when the earlier generations who understood the history died out.

Dempsey was considered the greatest hwt champion ever by very knowledgable people for many decades. These men knew the stories behind why these two fights never came off. If indeed the truth was Dempsey was scared to fight these men or purposefully avoided these bouts he would not have been rated where he was. Again for those with learning difficulties.....fighters fight while managers and promoters make fights. Dempsey doing what he did to make a bout with Wilks occur was unprecedented and went way out of line with what the worlds hwt champion should do especially in those days.

 

It is easy to say this or that guy would sweep Marciano's competition, but none swept his own. Liston, for example, lost to Marty Marshall, who would hardly have been in the top echelon of Marciano's opponents.

Your argument about Greb and Wills ends up for me more of a criticism of Dempsey (and his supporters) than Marciano.

The issue of this thread isn't what Lewis or Tyson would do, as I think they would sweep Dempsey's competition, which Dempsey didn't do. With Marciano's competition, they could at best only do what Marciano did, but this is guesswork and fantasy versus actual achievement.

 

just stepping off topic for a post,

but I do find it interesting that only in boxing do we get these weird attempts to diminish real world accomplishments on the basis of guesswork fantasy match-ups.

The 1972 NFL Miami Dolphins went undefeated. I have never heard anyone even try to argue that this means nothing as the 1940's Chicago Bears, or the 1950's Cleveland Browns, or whatever team you want to consider, would obviously have done the same.

Only boxing fans seem to want to go there.

In this thread a fighter who had a 78% winning percentage 30 years earlier while drawing the color line would win at a 100% pace in the Marciano era fighting the best available.