Does A Prime Marciano Beat The Joshua Of Today?

Haye was also alot faster and more athletic which allowed him to win the fight on the move. Marciano has to come to Joshua. Again how much did Marcianos best opponents weigh? Who was the biggest puncher he faced and how much did he weigh? Marciano doesnt have prime tysons speed headmovement and footwork to get in punching range without taking punches.
Valuev wasnt a proportional, athletic 300 plus pound boxer, i dont think that even exists because the human isnt designed to function in a boxing ring at 7 foot 300 plus pounds. But Joshua and Klitschko are still athletic hard punching big guys.

 

All during the initial decay of hwt boxing back in the 80's. However the idea is no one tried to compare any of these fighters with under 20 bouts to ATG hwt champions like Marciano nor tried using them as a yardstick to determine all time greatness of Holmes.

 

I'll also ad that Jim Jeffries won the title with 11 pro fights. Leon Spinks did it with only 7 fights. And Vasyl Lomachenko is currently viewed by many as p4p the most talented fighter in the world with only 9 fights.

 

What's a Dillion Whyte? Nothing I wrote is absurd. What is absurd is using a nothing like Joshua as a yardstick to determine the ATG of Wlad.

 

No one was claiming Clay could beat Marciano when he defeated Liston now were they?

 

Having some of the amateur careers and training regimens that these guys have today is as valuable or more so than spending the first 20 or so bouts of one's career battling club fighters who box as a job on the side, the way that men did decades ago. And this isn't about comparing legacies. Rocky will likely always rate higher on an all time list than Joshua will. But head to head match ups are a different animal. Joshua is a 6'6", 240 lbs heavyweight who can knock guys out with one punch and who boxes reasonably well. Marciano was a 5'10", 185 lb man who got decked by fighters closer to his size. If the Rock were around today there's no way this match would even get made.

 

Well you said -

"Joshua is 18-0. A nothing.....A nobody as a pro. He does not deserve to be rated as a top ten contender let alone be called champion. (Which he isn't)."

Spinks was rated just in the top 10 by The Ring just before he challenged Ali. He'd had 7 fights and drew LeDoux among them. How and why was he rated top 10?

 

I have no idea. I imagine boxing insiders/experts as well as fans were doing exactly that though. You would be the guy saying Clay wouldn't last a minute with 'Battling Fighting Fireman Jock McGooch' or whoever was champ back in the 1800's. Come on man, you can't tell me you look at Joshua in action and see nothing for Rocky to worry about?

 

Heavyweight boxing is near as good as it has ever been. The athletes are miles ahead of past years in terms of the depth of specimens provided. The biggest problem remains overly cautious and manipulative matchmaking.

 

Well said, and I literally lol'd at that. The amusing thing is the posters who say comparatively little atgs from another era like Rocky and Ali would beat modern top shw's are mostly the same ones who would be saying Ali and rocky couldn't compare with earlier fighters, if they were there when those fighters were coming on the scene in the first place.

 

You can use Joshua as a yardstick on how much if any Wlad has declined. In his prime I don't think this would even be a competitive fight. If Wlad has anything left he will stop Joshua. If he loses to Joshua it won't be because he is the better fighter but because the Wlad we saw against Fury marked the beginning of the end for him. He is 41 and hasn't fought in a year and a half. When Marciano stopped a 37 year old Joe Louis and retired him nobody said Marciano was better all time than Louis. This would be no different. Either way I think Wlad stops him very early or very late in a fight that sees Joshua win one round at best.

 

I think everyone accepts that Joshua is going into this fight a little green, but then the cycle of 'Experience-vs-Youth' is like that. There's no getting away from it and, why would we want to.

However, while I don't think that the number of bouts on a ledger is an absolute measure of worth of a match-up, even if it is a world title bout, Joshua is short of worldly-level experience.

Even Witherspoon, Bey, Williams, Ali etc. had had some level (even if only a smidgen) of a test, within the context of their respective career progression, before meeting the champ. And, let’s not forget that many of the young, inexperienced challengers being mentioned in comparable scenarios, thoroughly surprised almost everyone (if not shook up the world) with their efforts and exploits. I'm not sure there was the type of prior confidence for them back then, as I am seeing for Joshua today.

Before this bout with Wlad, I would have preferred Joshua to have had some more match experience, with at least one or two HWs, who had recently been mixing in the type of company that is considered world level. So, I can see the 'Joshua is a Novice' angle to a certain extent.