That's funny. Prime Ezzard Charles was in a worse mess after fighting a less active old Joe Louis himself. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uBrjL7QQ40E
Yeah, this revisionist nonsense wherein Marciano possesses excellent defensive skills is really something else.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uBrjL7QQ40E Joe Louis found Charles at least as easy to hit as Rocky going by the extra damage on Charles' face compared to Rocky after both fought Louis. If Rocky had a bad defence so did Charles when he was on top of the world cleaning out the post war division. Nobody is saying Rocky had excellent defensive skills, he got by because he was so awkwardly effective. A good offence being a good enough defence. It worked for him. The openings he left didn't allow him to get hit in the face any more often than anyone else. The proof is in the pudding. If you land more punches than you get hit with you win. Rocky still hit everyone more times than he got hit. Who hit Rocky more times than he hit them?
Charles had a swollen eye that's about the extent of his damage . Rocky didn't have a bad defence in that fight because neither he or Louis were champion. Rocky's reign is excellent, he fought who was around, he could do no more. Rocky hit consistently harder over rounds than did his adversaries that's why he won,that and the fact that he trained like a maniac and was willing to accept horrendous amounts of punishment to achieve victory.
no, look at Charles in this post fight clip, https://m.youtube.com/index?desktop_uri=/&gl=GB#/watch?v=uBrjL7QQ40E this is more than a swollen eye. Ezzards whole forehead and lips have ballooned. His other eye is also marked. The morning after he proberbly would have two black eyes because as the swelling went down it might spread across the nose. . I wasn't talking about title reigns. I meant "if Rocky had such poor defensive skills then so did Charles when he was on top of the world dominating the post war division" because his face was worse than Rockys was after fighting Joe Louis.
When you fight as Marciano, Frazier etc fought you get hit. That's not the issue. If you know boxing technically Rockys D far outshines that of Frazier and many others. Moore and Walcott prior to fighting Marciano stated he was a wide open target, an amateur, easy to get. It goes on and on. In the ring you see both opponents searching for Rocky with punches expecting an open target. Was not the case.
Walcott and Louis both said Marciano was not hard to hit. Walcott qualified this by saying he was hard to catch with a big shot. Louis said in his autobiography ,Marciano was a street brawler. Moore said Marciano just wore him down. Moore was 38/39 ,going on 41 according to his Mother.Walcott was 37& 38.Louis 36. What would have been the result of those fights had they been prime?:think
Huh? Neither of them had any problem finding Marciano. Take away Marciano's punching power advantage against his fellow cruiser-sized heavies and both Walcott and Moore would have sat down on their punches and torn him apart by the mid-rounds. One need look no further than the first round of the Walcott fight to see this. Rocky's defensive maneuvering may have been a bit more varied than Frazier's but it was far less effective because he only possessed a fraction of Frazier's reflexes and movement.
nobody hit Rocky more times than he hit them. Nobody hit Rocky any more than anyone hit anybody else. Joe Louis, Walcott, Charles never had any problem hitting each other. None of them hit Rocky more times than he hit them and its crazy to say they did. Take away Rockys punching power advantage???? Why take anything away from anybody? If you need to take something away to make a point you are already onto a loser. Take Rockys power away, if you could do that, he's still standing more punches. yes, if you tied Rockys hands behind his back I'm sure he would get torn apart. Walcott came out smoking. But nobody can keep that up. A lesser fighter would have been knocked out. I'm not here to argue that two fighters who fought in different eras against completely different men might have had or had not as good defensive qualities than the other. The only way you could do a realistic comparison is if they fought the same guy. Frazier on his game, at his best, was a magnificent champion. He was tough to hit in that his perpetual motion took a lot away from the other man. Frazier's slip and move also generated leverage. He wound up power as he slipped. He kept the other mans anxiety levels through the roof, crowding them, forcing them to set an unsuitable pace for themselves. But was this outright traditional defensive qualities? How do you gage that? Rocky was as busy but in comparison to Joe he did not move for the sake of moving. Rocky feinted and countered a way in by either drawing a punch from the opponent for marciano to come inside or under. Once inside his crashing and mauling deflected and smothered the other man's leverage and general work. Again like Frazier this took a lot away from the offence and control from the other man so his defence was helped by what the opposition could do. Frazier and Rocky achieved the same thing. Frazier got hit a whole lot more after his first fight with Ali because he fought beyond his prime. I dont know how anybody can say either had poor defensive aspects when they always outlanded against their foes.
Rocky had a very underappreciated defense. It's very clear IF YOU KNOW BOXING TECHNICALLY that he was clearly Fraziers superior in this regard. The feints, slipping in and out or range, parries, blocking all maneuvers ingrained in Marcianos style. In comparison Frazier was highly repetitive and predictable tending many times to make punches miss but not move his legs. Easily timed.
Why play dumb?? My point was an obvious and simple one: Those men didn't land more punches on Marciano not because he was defensively talented but rather because they both grew worn down and/or leery of the higher-caliber return fire. This revisionist yarn that Perry, Reznick and others (you?) have been trying to spin about Marciano's defensive skills is rubbish.
Again, if your point is simply that Marciano used a broader array of defensive techniques and tactics than Frazier, I'm not inclined to argue with you (although I think you greatly exaggerate the nuance and effectiveness). To say that this makes him defensively superior though is in my opinion completely misguided.
