How good was the ONLY undefeated former heavyweight world champ?

His resume is pretty ****ing sad, it would be the same as saying Oscar's wins over an old Chavez and an Old Camacho should make him an elite fighter. I wouldn't put him top 10 of all time in the heavyweight division maybe not even top 15.

 

Ali in 66' would have made him look like an amateur club fighter.

 

o2 bash your 1st comment has to go down in esb history as the dumbest ever! this place is absurd! who did johnson or louis fight? dockworkers,a nazi and stanley ketchel! please, marciano's resume,talent and legacy is solid! idiots. top 5 easy.

 

lukeO: wtf does that have to do with it? the klits would have bounced the likes of patterson,liston etc around the ring like a de-flated rubber dildo! idiot.

 

I like marciano but if he had accepted to come out of retirement to fight liston i think he would have lost.
In todays era he would not have been a champion, wlad beats him.

 

he was the best of his era......

 

He had great heart and always found a way to win. Too bad he died before him and the Petronelli's could open a gym...:|

 

I think the general consensus on here is Rocky is in the top 15 ATG . . . and I would have to agree with that assessment. Some people on here point to his record and say see he was undefeated and beat everyone he faced. Others say early on he fought people who wish they could make on the bum of the month club and then beat dinosaur ex champs and elite fighters who came straight from the morgue. In many ways the debate over his legacy parallels the K-bros. They all fight/fought in extremely weak eras in the heavy weight division. Something none of them have control over but limits them on how highly they can be ranked. It also does not help that you have fans who claim that they are GOATs or in the top three all-time when this is clearly not the case for all three fighters. This draws a strong negative reaction from many fight fans who in turn tend to emotionally say they are bums. Which is once again clearly not the case. this goes back to my opening statement, rocky like the kbros will probably considered in the top 15 all time (amongst men who actually held the heavy weight title)

 

i remember on a the ring article saying calzaghe should be ranked higher p4p :think

 

maybe get in top 25 heavy-weights poss top 50 p4p ,

 

Based on what he did during his era and his accomplishments you would have to rate him pretty well.The guy had a lot of disadvantages and still always managed to win.Rocky was tough as hell no doubt.

 

If you look at his level of opposition, you could say Tyson did the same except that Tyson made it look easy.

Marciano KOed a 38 yr old Louis in 8
Tyson KOed a 38 yr old Holmes in 4

Marciano beat (but struggled, almost lost to) Moore and Charles
Tyson koed an undefetaed Michael Spinks in 91 seconds

Marciano beat a host of other fighters but I am not sure they are any better than the bigger strong guys Tyson beat like Tucker, Ruddock and Bruno.

Marciano defended his title 6 times.
Tyson defended his more than 10 times.

But yeah, Rock was undefeated and was lucky to have reigned in an era where the best contenders were past prime Louis and LHW greats Moore and Charles.

I really think if Rock fought in Tyson era, one of the guys would have figured him out and came up with a plan to beat him. Matter of fact, I see many wanting to get the chance to fight him at HW, given his size. This is just my opinion of course.

 

The thing that is amazing is that he was probably the least physically gifted great heavyweight champ, but still was the only one to never lose. You can argue his competition was weak, but he never ducked anybody. If he would have kept fighting he would have certainly destroyed Floyd Patterson, Cus D'Amato knew that and it why they never fought.

Maybe in today's era he wouldn't be champ, but I would favor him against any fighter under 210lbs, including a prime Joe Louis.