Larry Holmes vs Rocky Marciano

Marciano was dropped by both a left hook and a right hand. And by two men on the verge of 40.

 

If Holmes couLd survive Shavers bomb he could survive anything that Marciano could throw.
Marciano ground down Walcott,Moore,Lastaza,Charles and ****ell . Moore even said he finally ground me down.

 

Shavers landed one good punch in that fight. Marciano would land many more. Marciano was a different class of fighter than Shavers.

Watch the YouTube video that exhibits Rockys defense. You will see him slip the Louis jab, the Walcott jab and the Charles jab. Check it out.

 

Then why couldn't he grind Holmes down?

 

Was he though?

Walcott was renowned for his physical strength.

I think I remember somebody saying that he was the strongest guy they ever shared a ring with, apart from Sonny Liston.

 

"Rock was really upright about the toupee," Ali's trainer, Angelo Dundee, said. "He had this guy in New York that made his toupees. I remember when he got the first one. Mingia! It was terrible. It looked like a dead cat. I said, 'Rocky, watch out. The thing might get up and run away."

Sadly the scene didn't make the final edit.

The theatre is further enhanced by knowing that the 'blood' from Marciano's cuts to his nose and forehead, which he develops in the fight, is ketchup. Wrote Ali: "My glove never hit his face, his glove never hit mine … the promoter asks me if I can think of some ending, and I plan the one that is actually used: I show Rocky how to hit me and I fall as though it's real. We have seven different endings – some with me winning, some with Rocky winning. Some segments we fake so good they are left untouched by the editors."

Ali has a point with the knockout sequences, which are realistic enough. And there are moments where a fight hints at breaking out, especially in the 12th where Ali connects with a series of playful flicks that get a snorting Marciano swinging widely. Mostly, though, the action was sloppy and forgettable.

"I think it was Marciano who threw the first real punch," Woroner said later. "They had been fooling around when Marciano suddenly let one go to the midsection. Ali followed with a shot to the head. But the fighters respected each other and apologized for these slips. And afterwards, Ali commented that Marciano had surprised him."

A friendship was forged outside the ring. Marciano, the bashful white man who served his country in the second world war, and Ali, the brash Afro-American draft dodger, found themselves getting on famously.

"Through all the fakery, something is happening between us," Ali wrote in his autobiography. "I feel closer to him than any white fighter in the trade. We talk fighter's talk in the way only friends can, blood talk, nitty-gritty talk. Our work is phoney but out friendship has become real."

Throughout filming Ali referred to Marciano as 'champ'. And in his autobiography he wrote: "Rocky was quiet, peaceful, humble, not ****y or boastful" adding that he "deserves his place as one of the greatest of the great heavyweights. Marciano, meanwhile, called Ali "the fastest man on wheels".

"But as the fraud came near an end, it was plain that neither of us, both heavyweight champions, liked the idea of being dramatized as defeated by the other – especially in a fake fight – and we were both on edge," admitted Ali. "One afternoon I unleashed a string of lightning-fast jabs that kept coming almost the entire round. Rocky was amazed and said: "I never seen a fighter with hands that fast."

The pair separated on good terms. A month later Marciano was dead when the three-seater plane he was travelling in from Chicago to Des Moines crashed into an oak tree in the middle of a cornfield. It was the evening before his 46th birthday.

Then.

On 20 January 1970, the Super Fight was shown as a one-time-only offering in 1,000 cinemas across the United States and a further 500 in Canada, Mexico and Europe. The result was "more closely guarded than the gold in Fort Knox," according to Time magazine. But some sniffed the future in the prevailing wind.

As Arnold Davis, the Philadelphia Inquirer reporter, told Ali: "That computer is no fool. You won't submit to White America's old image of black fighters, you won't even submit to White America's army. You're barred from the ring, stripped of the title, and on the other hand here is the real White Hope, the undefeated world heavyweight hero of the post-Joe Louis days … every self-respecting made-in-America computer knows how to add that up.

"You know what they want?" he added. "They want your ass whipped in public, knocked down, ripped, stomped, clubbed, pulverised, and not just by anybody, but by a real Great White Hope. We need Marciano to be able to club you into submission. They'll dig up the old heroes to say we had real red-blooded white men in those days that could handle ******s like this. A white ghost against a black ghost … Fantasy – but a lot of people live on fantasy. The end is supposed to be a mystery? To whom? Marciano will beat you bloody. And it will sell like hell in South Africa, to say nothing of Indiana and Alabama."

Others did more than smell the result in advance; they knew it. As Skehan put it: "One thing is certain: Rocky never thought he would lose. He had refused millions to make a comeback in the ring. There was no way he would risk losing a fight to a computer for a few thousand dollars." Just before Marciano died, just three weeks after filming, his brother Peter asked him: "How do you think you'll do in that fight?" "I'm a winner in 13," said Marciano, grinning.

After the plane crash, Peter phoned Woroner, concerned that the end would be changed. He needn't have worried: the result was exactly as his brother had forecast. During the 'fight' Marciano was bloodied, put down, and behind on points before coming back to win by knockout in the 13th round – an unimaginative regurgitation of his first championship bout with Jersey Joe Walcott.

Ali watched the fight in a crowded Philadelphia picture house; saw his left arm sagging on the middle rope as Marciano lifted his hands in celebration as the computer delivered its verdict: "Rocky Marciano wins by KO in 57 seconds. Knockout came on a combination of two rights and a left hook. Muhammad Ali though game could not withstand Marciano's final attack. Ali did not land a single effective punch this round." And he felt shame.

"I saw myself on the ropes being destroyed by Marciano, in one of the 'artistic' endings few actors could equal," he wrote. "But some people thought it was real. Some sat stone-still, some booed and yelled, some cried … I felt like I had disappointed millions all over the world. It left me ashamed of what I had been doing. I had gone over the country promoting the series as fair and accurate, especially the Marciano v Ali show."

His trainer Angelo Dundee was more sanguine. "To err is a machine," he joked.

Why did people believe the whole grand sham? Partly because they wanted to, of course. But this was also the era when man shot for the stars, and moonwalking was a reality not a dance. Technology was taking on all-comers and winning. Its dimensions were uncertain, its boundaries unclear – perhaps using it to 'solve' sporting hypotheticals wasn't so far-fetched.

Of course the Super Fight didn't settle the debate. It merely reset it. It matters little, but in a hypothetical Ali v Marciano encounter, most would make a prime Ali – the Ali that dismantled Cleveland Williams, before inactivity snatched much of the skip and slip from his legs – a strong favourite. But Marciano would have had a puncher's chance. And he certainly was a puncher.

Speaking to Howard Cossell on the Wild World of Sports in 1976, Ali paid his friend and acting partner a generous tribute, saying: "Ooh he hit hard … But I truly think on my best day and his best day I would have beaten him, probably not knocked him out. I think he was better than Joe Frazier, put it that way. And you know what Joe Frazier did to me.

As you can see Ali had made his opinion known well before the Wild World Of Sports in 76.

 

I watched the entire first Marciano Walcott bout last night. Such a great fight. Not many hwts in boxing history put on a display of great boxing that Walcott demonstrated that night. Tremendous skill in the ring. This fight really must be in anyone's greatest fights ever list.

 

Prime Holmes is a step (or two, in some cases) above those fighters. Also, Holmes was a fighter with fantastic recuperative powers.

 

To be honest he is probably easier to catch than Walcott, and his power isn't going to be anything Marciano has never seen before.

I see Marciano taking this, on styles.

 

Because those other men were all stopped by lesser fighters and in some cases even when near prime.. Holmes made it through 75 professional fights only having been stopped once - Against a deadly slugger at his very best and when Larry was 38 and had been retired for 2 years.. Throughout his career Holmes met and felt the power of Earnie Shavers, Roy Williams, Ken Norton, Mike Weaver, Gerry ****ey, Tim Witherspoon, Bonecrusher Smith, Ray Mercer and Evander Holyfield. None of those men could stop him and the vast majority lost.. Picking ANY fighter to knockout a prime Holmes is a risky bet and if I were to advise anybody looking to do it, I'd tell them to keep the wager small.

 

A prime 29 year old Larry Holmes is going to be easier to catch than a tired, 38 year old Walcott at the very end of a long career? That's some assessment.

And the guys who caught Holmes well during his prime (Shavers, Snipes) had reaches in the 78" range not 67" range. That gives Larry a lot of room for error.

 

But this is Marciano were talking about. All rules go out the window. He is the stuff of legends now, and able to achieve beyond the normal.

 

This is a valid argument.

I would contend that Holmes fought a lot of punchers, but few great fighters.

Marciano might just be able to succeed where those guys failed, but as you say, we will keep the wager small.

 

1. If you are going to continue to quote Joe Louis and accept it as the gospel, then you must accept this quote from Joe Louis "Marciano would have beaten me in my prime. I had a weakness, I didn't like to be crowded".

2. Joe Louis had the best jab in the heavyweight division in 1951. He destroyed people's faces in his last 9 fights with his jab, including a peak ezzard charles. It wasn't larry holmes jab, but it was a good one.

3. Why don't you bring up Holmes opponents? Mike Weaver(Only 6'1 200lb) landed his right hand at will against Holmes. Renaldo Snipes(average fighter) nearly knocked Holmes out in round 7. Marciano was a better puncher and more skilled fighter than either of those two men. Holmes continued to be a sucker for good right hands his entire career. Marciano's roundhouse/overhand right is one of the best in history. There is not a chance that Holmes goes 15 rounds without testing Marciano's right hand at least once.

4. Holmes had the bad habit of trying to slug it out when hurt. You think if Marciano hurts Holmes, and Holmes tries to slug it out, that wouldn't be a terrible idea for Larry?

5. Holmes hit as hard as Walcott and Moore? Moore is rated # 4 on Ring Magazine top 100 punchers of all time. Walcott is rated # 63 on Ring Magazine top 100 punchers of all time. Joe Louis is rated # 1. They say power is the last thing to leave a fighter, apparently the exception is Marciano opponents. Holmes did not make the top 100 list.

6. You really underate Marciano's defense. You borderline insult Charley Goldman's ability as a trainer. He really cleaned Marciano up. By 1955, he had Marciano demonstrating some clever defense in his crouch against Archie Moore. He made Moore miss quite a few punches. Rocky was constantly weaving/bobbing/rolling in his crouch, getting low, making himself a small target. He was quite cute at slipping jabs, even against some of the best jabbers of the era(Louis, Walcott, Moore)


7. Expect this fight to be a closely contest war, fought in the trenches. 50-50 fight. Holmes jab, uppercuts and handspeed will be huge problems for Marciano. But Marciano's ability to get inside, durability, and deadly right hand would pose a lot of problems for Holmes. Holmes loved to fight in the trenches, which plays into Marciano's strengths. Holmes would cut up Marciano's face badly with his sharp pinpoint punches, but Marciano was an animal, pure and simple. He didn't care, he would keep coming after holmes.