I like Marciano's 4th and 5th professional pro fights against Bobby Quinn (8-0) and Eddie Ross (15-0). Their managers had probably seen Marciano spar and concluded he was the ideal new padding for their fighters' record. Another one would be Wladimir Klitschko vs journeyman Ross Purrity. Wlad pummuled him for 9 rounds untill he ran out of gas and his corner threw in the towel. Big upset.
Eddie Ross was actualy 26-0-1 with 23 KOs when Marciano was fed to him. Those who think that Marciano was a protected fighter are mistaken.
michael bentt vs morrison. bentt had basically no pro experience........but whacked out the guy who was supposed to challenge lewis for the title and a 5 million purse.
boxrec has eddie ross at 15-0-1 at the time of the marciano fight. and eddie ross was not a heavyweight. he had scaled as low as 167 a few months before the marciano fight. to me this indeed suggests protection on marcianos half.
It dose not matter what boxrec lists him as. The papers of the time list Ross as 26-0-1. Boxrec is woefully incomplete. Protection? If you had a young fighter with 4 profesional fights would you think that you were protecting him by putting him in the ring with a guy with 27 fights just because he was a light heavyweight? Marciano himself was around the light heavyweight limit at this time. At this stage in his career there was nobody to protect Marciano. He was living at the YMCA and training in the YMCA swimming pool. If he wanted to visit a potential manager he had to hitch hike.
depends on the fighter. look at chagaev. he was 5-0 when he took on rob calloway who way 43-3.............and it was no big deal. numbers lie. if i had a young prospect with talent, i wouldnt mind putting him in with a guy like 41-0 don steele in his pro debut. and that wouldnt be overmatching.
Oleg Maskaev fought a fighter that was 21-0 in his first pro fight. Then in his 5th he fought a fight that was 23-1-1.
