If Marciano Was Black???

but ken Norton is either dead or in some American nursing home. I fail to see how.

 

Marciano is arguably top 5 atg, but its difficult to argue him lower than 10 even if you partially proved the mob connections.

hes the most contentious top fiver for sure, but its still a top five place, which is an almost untouchable apotheosis.

 

Burt you are a class act :good

 

How's things?

This is a great thread, with some truly great comments on it.

My take on it, is that Rocky was a great fighter, and he achieved a lot. The reason that I believe that, is by looking at his circumstances.

Like you say, he was a crude slugger. But not only that, he was only 5'10, weighing between 180-190 pounds.

So he was both undersized and underskilled.

So which ever way you look at it, it has to be a great achievement for a 5'10 HW, who wasn't blessed with speed and skills, and who only weighed in the 180's, to have gone undefeated in almost 50 fights.

You have to look at things from Rocky's perspective. If Lennox Lewis had fought Rocky's opponents at the same time, it wouldn't have been as big of an achievment. Why? Because Lewis was more skilled, and he was 6'5, with an 86" reach, who weighed between 240-250 pounds.

I think there's a few people like yourself, who are focusing more on Rocky's competition, than Rocky himself. Again, if you look at his abilities and his physical disadvantages, you have to give him a lot of credit and say that he was a great fighter, who had a great career.


:good

 

Great post Edward.

Fighters fought a lot more back in the day, and they often fought other great fighters.

Ray Robinson lost 19 times, which today sounds a lot. But not when you look at all of the circumstances involved, such as his age, and his total number of fights etc.

Losing fights back in the era of Rocky Marciano, doesn't mean they were bad fighters.

How many losses would today's fighters have on their resumes, if they fought every month or so, and went on to fight between 100-200 times?

I love these types of debates, but there's a lot of younger fans, especially on the general forum, who Boxrec fighters stats from earlier eras, and then assume that they were subpar, upon seeing their number of losses.


:good

 

Good post.
I'm a big fan of Marciano, but I can't argue with anything you said.

 

You fail to mention he used his crouch and defensive skills to avoid blows. His crouch made him a small target and along with slipping, blocking, bobbing and weaving he avoided his share of punches.

 

none of those fight excluding the Charles 2 elbow incident where near as bad as the Vitali-Lewis cut and others I have seen recently. I actually think Today they are more tolerant or TD it or add up points. I think is remarkable though how certain fighters like Joe Louis vs Conn and Walcott and Marciano had that ability to step up their game and turn lemons into lemonade....not many could do this

 

All fighters fighting in a swarming style get hit. However it's wrong to characterize Rocky as being crude. Not an easy target.