How do you rate Marcel Cerdan?

I think maybe Cerdan was slightly over the top when he got his title shot,its very hard to rate him as many of his opponents were obscure boxers in North Africa etc,Jack Sharkey raved about him

 

I'm still torn on this one to be honest.

 

Just slips in at the bottom of my top 10 Middleweights, occasionaly I put Tiger Flowers or Emile Griffith in the 10th spot though. He's certainly top 12.

 

Marcel Cerdan was my father's favorite fighter when he was a child, growing up and listening to boxing on the radio. It's true that the first 10 or so years of his professional career were spent restricted almost entirely to France and Africa, but even outside of that, in the twilight years of his career prior to his unfortunate crash, he ran up an impressive tally of 14-2, one of which he avenged against Delannoit, and the other a loss due to his shoulder injury against LaMotta. Cerdan had no real outstanding weaknesses, and even though he was starting to fade by the LaMotta fight, so was Jake. You can't count Cerdan out, since in the prior year to that fight, Cerdan put away both Tony Zale and Dick Turpin. They were both about 30 and both had a lot of battles behind them. I'm of the opinion that given a rematch, Cerdan would have been able to take a decision over LaMotta. I also think he'd have put away Yarosz, had they fought, who LaMotta had beaten in '48. I'd put Cerdan right around number 10. Just out of curiosity I checked the BOXREC all time middleweight rankings, for shits and giggles - they rate LaMotta at 31, and Cerdan at an unbelievably low 95. Go figure, right? Ha-ha.

 

Nice to see Cerdan's name up -- makes alotta years fly by. Remember watching him spar with Italo Scortichini at a gym in the Bronx.

Trigger quick and deceptively elusive. A smile that lit up a room.

 

I believe Cerdan would have regained the title. He hurt his shoulder earlhy in the first fight.

He is in my top 10 ATG middleweights.

He was a great fighter and very underrated these days.

 

I have him at Tier4 at mw equalling a ranking between 7 and 10 alongside Fitzsimmons and Griffith.

 

Cerdan is an under rated all time great. On film, he has a high guard, and a top hook. Nice speed, sound technique, and a whale of a guy to trade punches with. While Lamotta defeated Cerdan, Jake's throw down which injured Cerdan's shoulder had a lot to do with the outcome.

A tough guy who could take a punch. A skilled guy. One of the hardest punching middles of all time. Top 10 for me. It’s too bad the plane crash took his life. I get the feeling Cerdan would have won the re-match, and had had plenty left to offer boxing.

 

BIG DEE HERE= Cerdan was a top 10 middleweight of all time. I have him ranked like the IBRO at No.7 all time in the middleweight rankings. He had it all as a middleweight he was fast, skilled, hard hitting and could take a wicked punch. Cerdan was also very intelligent in the ring and very hard to
outsmart. Cerdan would have butcherd LaMotta in the rematch as Jake couldn`t beat him the first time without handing out the worst foul in middleweight championsip history. Cerdan fought LaMotta with only his right hand for 10 rds before not coming out for the 11th. Cerdan was not a southpaw which makes it an impossible task fighting a guy like Lamotta without a jab of any kind. Believe it or not he was holding his own before the pain overwhelmed him. It`s funny because his son Marcel Cerdan Jr. who was a fine boxer with a sturdy chin couldn`t breake an egg with his punching power. GO FIGURE.

 

Cerdan shows great form on film, but that's pretty much what most of his legacy is based on - how he looked, rather than what he actually did.

It's possibly he really was one of the greatest middleweights of all time, but he simply wasn't in enough big fights to prove it. He probably was already past his peak when he finally got his first title shot, and then he had one big win and one big loss before he died. Sure, it's possible he "would've" beaten LaMotta if he hadn't injured his arm, or that he "would've" beaten LaMotta in a rematch, but the fact is he didn't.

It's a shame that Cerdan never got a rematch with LaMotta, or a shot at Henry Armstrong back when he was a welterweight (which supposedly was planned, but World War 2 got in the way). Those might've gone a long way toward settling the matter of Cerdan's true quality.

 

how so? cerdan was stylistically made for jake lamotta. he couldnt hurt lamotta, he wasnt strong enough to hold off lamotta, and he couldnt match lamottas workrate. he wasnt a fast moving outside boxer, so i dont see how he beats a peak shape jake.

In the first fight, Lamotta floored cerdan with a left hook, staggered him pretty bad even before the shoulder injury(which was caused by lamotta being too strong for cerdan)...

 

How so, because LaMotta was slower and less skilled. And hit did hit has hard either. Cerdan has zero problems with stamina. NONE. Lamotta's work rate would not make Cerdan gas.

 

Where do rate Fitz as an all-time great then?

FWIW I rate Bob as one of the very best to enter the ring.