Kenny Norton Against Marciano? Anyone See Rocky Losing?

Norton looks juiced IMO

 

Norton was actually an excellent fighter. It generally took a physically imposing fighter to force him to fight off the back leg and not just someone who simply hit hard. I think his sparring sessions with Joe Frazier might also prove useful against a somewhat similar fighter in Marciano. Ken was 6’3” and a sculpted 210 when in his prime. He wasn’t a power puncher by any means but he could certainly crack, box well and go 15 rounds. His chin wasn’t the greatest but he didn’t exactly crumble with only one punch. And most of the men who stopped him were some of the hardest hitters in history ( two of them when Ken was passed it. ) a 37 year old Joe Louis on the comeback trail gave Rocky 8 competitive rounds. I think a prime Norton might do that or better

 

Correct. The opponents Rocky beat did look better on film because, at least in terms of skill, they were - not to denigrate Marciano's own skillset, which has been underrated at times, but a skill set that should not be overstated at the same time. That can then perhaps lead us to conclude that Marciano's persistence, quality of chin (relative to the opposition's power), sheer will to win, and heart primarily brought him up to par and then some.

A number of those fights were no walks in the park at all - it was Rocky at full stretch. I think some of the more desperate moments during some of Rocky's fights might be over-looked since fans became accustomed to him overcoming those moments at each and every turn against the opposition before him.

Even Rocky's last fight vs old LH Moore was a brutal affair for Marciano, and aside from the obvious hurt caused by the KD, I think Rocky was stunned/hurt on a number of other occasions during that fight.

While completely admirable, how far could Rocky take the aforementioned intangibles against bigger, some arguably better and more powerful opposition? Given how much Marciano was heavily taxed during his actual career, I don't know that there is much room left for extrapolating him into greater success than he actually did achieve.

 

Hi Buddy.
Neat and sensible appraisal of Marciano and some intangibles, standard from your pen, of all the fights and fighters that have been written about since I crept in round the back door of the forum Marciano has without doubt been the most divisive ,by a country mile .
There are diehards in both camps, one being he is a great fighter, and deserving of a top 6/7 ranking, the other, he does not, they see him as being right place right time, Louis was old and spent ( albeit he troubled Rocky ) the others were just past it and beating them was no great feat, my personal and honest assessment of him is with the first group, he was a truly formidable fighter, fearless, courageous, and with a indomitable will to win, which I see as the most salient of all, do I believe he would have the beating of Lewis, no, or Foreman, or Holmes, but he will not countenance that, he would have trained like a spartan up in the catskills, him and Goldman locked in the makeshift gym, long hours and days of grind, sweat and toil, honing him into fighter that is utterly dismissive of defeat, but, the real big quality champs would beat him, sadly the goliaths would prevail, there is no biblical ending for Rocky, but can you imagine our sport without him, I can't.......
stay safe Pugguy.

 

From what I've read the Garcia KO was before Norton implemented the cross guard, and was a hardcore pressure fighter, of course after the Garcia loss that's when he implemented his new style.

 

Great post Mike. We can be objective without rose tint but maintain and afford credit and respect where and when it is due.

Those intangibles that Rocky demonstrated are the most cherished in boxing, heart, conditioning, will etc. And arguably, Rocky perhaps possessed those traits more than any other fighter or ,at the very least he resides among the very best in those regards.

 

Thanks, excellent point. Interesting that Ken still got shook a few times in the rematch but ultimately took the punches quite well. The rematch is actually a very entertaining stoush and you could see that Garcia had some decent clout in his punches. Never seen the first match - is it out there somewhere?

 

Questionable.

 

Dude, Marciano had hands of stones, a heart of a lion and an uncommon style.

 

Unquestionable.

 

If there was any so called " athlete " with that natural talent who later took up boxing, it was Norton .. He was a football star and Track and field star who took up boxing late. as in early 20's .. why? Because he was a ****ing athlete, does Mike gibbons ring a bell or Bo Jackson, athletes here .....
Now people are saying he was a juicer ? I wonder if he started that in the Marine Corp

 

Unfortunately, their first match was only seen by people who were there, apparently the Olympic Auditorium were quite lazy with filming.

 

Someone earlier said that us Rocky diehards believe that the great man would even beat both King Kong and Godzilla at the same time!
Well as a big fan of Marciano I can tell you that we fans may be a bit OTT about him at times but even we wouldn’t go that far, come on. The man was only human after all…he had his limitations like any other flesh and blood man. Those two gigantic monsters together would annihilate him in seconds. The Rock would be destroyed and it wouldn’t be pretty.

One on one though, Rocky stops them both by the 10th round, no problem

 

And again that has nothing to do with how Marciano is going to deal with bigger elite
Heavyweights. You seem to not be able to comprehend the size difference for some reason, or the fact that Marciano was fighting old Light Heavyweights two of them even dropped him!!!!! Can you imagine Marciano getting hit flush by a 220+ pound Heavyweight ?

You just keep bringing up the same thing or keep ridiculously saying about "100 kg Heavy bag."

Mate he could punch a concrete wall for all I care, and have the biggest heart in the world. A Cruiserweight with a swarming style and 67 inch reach is going to end up flat on his back vs the likes of Liston, Foreman, Lewis, Tyson.

 

Fair play Vic. But what about Gamera, the giant flying, flaming turtle? Another ATG monster. Could Rocky overcome Gamera's natural athletic abilities as demonstrated in the clip below? That's a 10 out of 10 landing by the way.

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