Did Jersey Joe have The Perfect Style To Beat Marciano?

Could a younger Walcott have won? Possibly but I wouldn't bet on it. In my opinion the perfect style to detonate Rocky Marciano was George Foreman and probably Sonny Liston.

 

Apparently not, lol.

Problem is, Joe didn’t really have a prime. The younger version who was in more peak physical condition was closer to journeyman/gatekeeper than contender. The guy who lost to 11-15 Johnny Allen in 1945 and Joey Maxim in ‘46 isn’t beating Marciano.

 

A younger Walcott (from the Louis fights, let's say) made more use of his legs, but perhaps wasn't sitting down as much on his punches - not sure how that trade-off would affect a hypo Rocky matchup.

Ironically, Ezzard Charles had more success vs. a dancing/mobile Walcott than he did vs. an aggressive, flat-footed 1.

 

He was sitting on his punches, he just chose when to sit on them and when not too in an apparently random fashion, which kept throwing Louis off.
The knockdown sequence in the 4th is the obvious example.

 

The one who lost to Maxim also beat him the next two times they fought that year, and alongside Maxim he beat Elmer Ray Jimmy Bivins, Joe Baksi, Lee Oma, Lee Q Murray and Curtis Sheppard. The two losses to Maxim and Ray were close decisions that he avenged right away in convincing fashion and then he nearly beats Louis. Walcott never had a run as good as the one from 45' to 48'.
I doubt that the Walcott who lost to Layne would have this consistency.

 

Pretty obvious to me he would’ve won that first fight if he’d had the legs of 1947.

 

I think it more than likely.

 

He lost to Maxim and Ray. His ‘avenged right away in convincing fashion’ is Joe winning both rematches by majority decision and all cards in both fights were very close. He did get the verdict, but I wouldn’t call the reversals of his defeats exactly resounding.

In ‘45 he lost to a guy with a losing record.

Maxim was a durable guy but hardly a heavyweight threat — on the one hand we get told how Ray Robinson (a middleweight) only lost to him because of the heat, and on the other it’s a great win for Walcott to beat him by majority decision (after losing to him)? Ray is a good win (but he split with him in that period). Bivins is a good win.

But Oma and Sheppard had Nealry 50 losses between them when Walcott beat them. Murray was two fights removed from losing to a 10-4-4 guy.

Let’s not act like this stretch was some period where Joe was mowing through a series of unbeatable, Mount Rushmore types, lol.

He almost beat an old Joe Louis? Then got KTFO in a rematch when he did his little dipsy-doodle shuffle and got smacked. That loss to old, well-past-it Louis does a lot of heavy lifting.

Joe got hot when he got old. But he was also losing as often as he won (which he did throughout much of his career) and was being handed title shot after title shot due to his mob manager and finally came through and won it. Then immediately lost it.

 

Yeah, Walcott should have challenged Rocky to a game of horseshoes where close counts.

 

I think it’s very possible. It’s just a matter of exactly how much he declined between 1946 to 1952 if even at all.

 

No, Walcott's style resulted in him losing every third time he stepped into the ring.

Lewis, Wlad, Vitali all have perfect styles to demolish Marciano.

 

Walcott was great, but his style was more like Ali's (a boxer), while Marciano resembled Frazier (a swarmer). Probably the best style against Marciano would be that of Cleveland Williams or Sonny Liston.