How good of a fighter was Marcel Cerdan?

hes a beast
didnt he knock out tony zale, the man of steel?

 

Cerdan was great , the stoppage of Zale was when Zale was past it , in his late 30's I think , but that shouldnt take anything away from Cerdan , Zale was the champion and Cerdan took the title from him with that brutal knockout. Cerdan never really met his master in the ring , 2 dq losses , a decision when he lost the euro title which was supposedly a dsgrace , and then lost on that injury fighting LaMotta (LaMotta was winning but still the outcome was not of the most convincing fashiion) .

Cerdan was really a great fighter , so strong and when he had his opponent on the ropes the infighting was one-sided everytime . He should be rated high and would be but for the trajedy after the Lamotta fight

 

In his prime aswell , Ive got some footage of him France on a video , a devastating ko really good

 

hes not top 10 at middleweight, too much of a padded record.

 

He may have been if he would have not had that crash and had the oportunities to fight more top level oposition , his ability was great , maybe not top 10 , but the division has a deep history , maybe number 10 with the oportuniities

 

Still, overall i rank guys like michael nunn and james toney over him.

 

Sorry , not Nunn , he was good at the weight , but Cerdan is borderline great , the Toney argument can be made though

 

Why not? Wins over kalambay, barkely, tate, roldan, curry and starling along with several ranked fighters is more impressive than just beating past thier primes zale and williams along with 100 bums. Nunn was top 3 p4p for 2 years, cerdan was never held in this type of regard.

 

Cerdan was French and Nunn was American when all the boxing publicity takes place in America . When we look back now at MDW history , there is not a chance Nunn is above Cerdan , have you seen Cerdan in his prime ? Great , even if it wasnt top competition level. Nunn's best names on his record - Curry , Starling above their best weights , the others are good wins , but not great , Toney was great but beat him . If Cerdan had a bit more time this conversation wouldnt be hapening . He still took apart Zale when he was champion , and LaMotta couldnt beat him decisevely . LaMotta and that Zale wouldve beat Nunn . And in a head-tohead sense , Nunn vs. Cerdan would be a one-sided afair , Cerdan too strong