Is Rocky Marciano the best Cruiserweight in history?

LOL enjoy

 

almost four am now and my dumb ass is still at it.

 

Tommy Goodwin a cyclist rode 70 odd thousands miles in one year . On an old bike on old roads in the 1930s. That record stood until couple years ago.

Hundreds have tried with all the drugs, technology, support teams , equipment and no one could do it until just now.

The guy used to sleep in fields or benches in wet soden woolen ckothing after riding 250 miles to get up and do he same next day. He actually died from his injuries afterwards.

What I'm trying to say is sometimes these freaks are born that are pretty much unstoppable. And at cruiser I would imagine marciano was similar.

Usk would have a good chance due to his amazing skills and of course holyfield. But give maricano some roids too and see what he's like. Scary thought

I dont buy every generation is better. 90s hw would dominate today easily.

 

No.

There are far too many great cruiserweights over the years who I'd pick over him, and possibly even a few LHWs, though at that weight Rock's power becomes a real factor.

I think H2H Rocky could be considered the victor over a number of high level CWs, but fighting them back to back year on end would finish him. His body would have to go through too much punishment. I could also see referees in this day and age stopping a Rocky fight on cuts which might have been allowed to continue in his own day.

It's fun to imagine that a man who went undefeated and notched wins over some of the most legendary names in boxing would have a field day with today's anonymous entities, but the case I suspect would be far different.

 

Not even close. The Brown Bomber was mopping the floor with 6'5" 260lb heavyweights. Call me when KANvolev does the same...

 

Holyfield beat better opposition..

 

Lmao

Roy clowns Marciano...

 

I'd like to think he's not really that stupid. Louis' punching power is legendary...

 

If you assume modern refs would not be willing why da **** would you assume Marciano would bank on it? That's like saying Wlad's got no chance in the past because he's used to fights being called earlier and relaxes when he expects the fight to be called. Of course with a different atmosphere the fighter will approach the fight differently. It's stupid to assume a fighter can't adjust to what the ref expects given they literally have a conversation about it before a single boot hits the canvas.

Marciano retired from stress he put on his own body not injuries sustained in the ring.

 

So tell us exactly which modern prize fighter you'd rate over SRR...

 

Holyfields , Qawi, Spinks Usyk and Haye all around 190/ 200 at some point gives Marciano trouble.

Beterbieve seems stronger or as strong ?

I think Gassiev is modern Rocky.

 

I think i have identified the problem ...

 

I'm probably the only one on this forum who has done the research to speak to historical trends in boxing. No offense to others exploring ancient champions or the atmosphere they fought in, but you're probably reading some of my work while you explore anyway. Beyond that, being familiar with 1720-today is basically just being familiar with Boxiana, Fistiania, and Pugilistica. It'd be fair to say Pindar, Pausanius, Philostratus, Diodoras, etc serve a similar function for the ancients, but with less work put online a lot of the time you find yourself forced to call a professional. I'd say the Perseus Collection at Tufts and the Foundation of the Hellenic World are a historian's best online tools for the ancients.

The explosion of lists of ancient champs ( the most basic of research tools) happened after I started posting lists not prior and you don't find many that deviate from mine for a reason. Wiki mirrors me not because there are no other choices but because those who authored the Wiki don't know any more than what I taught them. They have yet to see where I made choices and make their own. That, or everyone just happens to agree with me 100% of the time.

Either way, I don't mean to be arrogant and brag but the real historians no longer post and everyone else is looking at a 3k year old sport while talking about historical trends that exist within a couple hundred at best when y'all are being real relaxed and allow LPRR fighters in the convo. Some things in boxing take over 500 years to roll back around but once it's happened four times you have a pattern. A boxing champion fighting a mixed rules champion is one, and you can't notice it unless you keep going back past 1880. I'm not talking about big fighters or super popular freak fights, I mean champ vs champ or at least in the loosest terms champ vs master.

From 686 BC to today it is safe to claim cycles. No progress, no regress, just cycles of what is and is not socially acceptable. Society, not training, not what works, not science or physics, society is what judges what is and is not good boxing during the era. History and science do their best to provide answers after the fact.

It's like this, what made Melankomas a hero? If he was black, american, and fought in 1890 and absolutely nothing else was different about him would he have been a national hero? How about jewish in england in 1790? Having a great defense comes from the first century at the very least and is only poor boxing when the wrong race in the wrong place at the wrong time does it. If you asked an Englishman in 1790 about the state of boxing he'd likely tell you about how great Slack and Broughton was while complaining that Mendoza was ruining the english sport. Today Mendoza is the granddaddy of defense and sales. Did he ruin the sport? Maybe, I think a 1740s englishman who time traveled to now would say he did. Today we say he revolutionized the sport for the better. Doesn't matter which opinion is true all that matters defense came and went out of fashion for reasons that had nothing to do with it's usefulness.

I can't find the inventors. The term gets used but you can always find someone who was using a trick prior to someone else making it famous until you hit the ancients. Then you're left with evidence alone. We know the basic jab, hook, cross, overhand, and uppercut punches are all older than Onomastos because they are referenced. We know there was training for movement and defense because they talk about it. So what happened? Why if Onomastos was trained and those who came before him trained to move and use the sun defensively why is it by 1740 man is standing right in front of each other bopping heads until one can't stand in 30 seconds or less? Culture, it became unmanly, kinda like being gay. How did it come back? Culture, capitalism was on the rise and figuring out how to get people to throw their money at you was commonplace. It brought back defense being useful in a modern culture.

So no, the jab is still the jab. No progress, no regress, just a bunch of theory and formula chasing itself in a circle kinda like rock, paper, scissors. If a current culture says X is good fighting fighters will train to be X to gain popularity. When most fighters are X the formula tailor made to defeat X will become more prevalent. And roud it goes on and on mas y mas forever.

What else was cool during an era? Mortal Kombat came out while Mike Tyson was in jail. That's more why Mike was the way he was or is the way he is more than anything boxing did. The same society that produces a game like Mortal Kombat for the first time you'd expect to have a champion more like Tyson than say Mr. Nice Guy and always respectable Wladimir. Spitting in the eye of authority was all the rage and shock was the highest selling emotion of the era. I'll eat your babies or **** you til you love me is Mike's version of Manson's pseudo horror gender bending nonsense or Rob Zombie's witches and satan nonsense. It's really no different than the 20s when it was cool to depict Satan as a playful imp underneath Man doing little more than annoying him. It was shocking and shock was selling. Society comes in cycles and boxing follows. Eras we say are **** are glorified and demonized by past eras. It should be no surprise at all that when western society was into looking at greek democracy as an inspiration for new freedoms in their own countries boxing reintroduced ancient olympic style methods. Nor should it be surprising that when society is into gore and shock you have a championship fight with an ear being bitten off. It shouldn't surprise you to learn plenty of the "boxing" matches from the mid 1800's were "won" at gunpoint with a posse for support and used for political gain. The 70s and 80s saw a lot of shady dealings outside of boxing and Don King too didn't it? As societies go through their cycles boxing follows. There is no good, there is no bad, there is just what we like. The athletes always deliver what society wants to see.

 

I wouldn’t go that far. I love Evander....but not enough to make a claim like that. Marciano beat Joe Louis, Jersey Joe Walcott, Ezzard Charles....Archie Moore. Rocky definitely beat more hall of fame fighters who are recognized as ATGs

 

Interesting. I didn’t known there were references dating back to Ancient Greek Boxing of uppercuts, hooks, jabs and defense. The depth of My boxing knowledge goes as far back the early 20th Century.