Marciano in other eras with out the respectfull champs.

What I meant was Marciano competing against the likes of Witherspoon, Cooney, Thomas, Dokes, Coetzee, Norton, Tate, Page in the late 1970's/early 1980's era. I have no problem at all favouring Marciano over any of them head-to-head but what are the chances of going unbeaten over 49 fights if you take into account that he'd be facing a size disadvantage against all of his opponents?

His strength would not be as telling as it was against Charles, Walcott and Moore. His stamina is going to be drained from pushing around far bigger men. He is going to suffer cuts and in more recent times the doctors have been more prone to stopping fights earlier. Even someone like Carl Williams could score a fluke win if he were to cut Marciano early with the jab.

 

Would they be more difficult for Marciano though?

In most cases the pressure fighter loses his edge when faced against a size disadvantage and has to rely on his skill. There's a reason why Duran was absolutely dominant at 135 but lost fights to mediocrities as he moved up in weight. Of course he wasn't as dedicated as Marciano but even an out of shape Duran at 135 would have beaten the likes of Laing, Simms. He didn't battle men such as Leonard, Hearns, Hagler, Benitez on even terms when it comes to height and reach.

Pound for pound Marciano seems almost impossible to beat, how many fighters less than 200 lbs would you pick over him? Not many, if any. If someone is going to beat him it's going to be a man far bigger than him. Not necessarily as great, but bigger.

 

The three best opponents Marciano meet were Walcott, Moore, and Charles. All of them were slightly past to past their prime, and really made Rocky work to defeat the. Walcott floored Marciano early and really had him in trouble in the 11th. Moore, who was older and gassed also floored Marciano. Charles who was also past his best cut Marciano in the 2nd match in a fight that might have been stopped under modern rules.

Holmes fought several bigger and skilled punchers the likes that Marciano never saw. Shavers, Witherspoon, Smith, Norton, Cooney, and company hit harder and were bigger than anyone Rocky defeated. I'm not sure if Rocky could weather strom from a much bigger and skilled boxer.

Being un-defeated always has a nice ring to it, but retiring early ( age 32 ), and likely getting a favorable decsion vs LaStarza and Lowry in their first matches had a lot to do with it.

Rocky's stamina, courage and guts are under rated, but his height, extremely poor reach, lack of weight, average skills in a conventional sense, and wild swinging style ( which could be countered ) would spell trouble vs a bigger top level skilled opponent who who can punch and outfight.

I think Marciano would be a top level contender and alphabet champion in the late 1970's to mid 1980's but I also see some losses on his resume.

 

Had there been more money in a fight with valdes than weil could make with cockel a match with the cuban would have been made. As it hapened the cockel bout was a finatial disaster anyway but the gate for valdes would have been considerably smaller from the outset, likly forced into an indoor venue in miami such was the intrest in that i.e not worth making.
Valdes lost to a lot of smaller guys like satterfield, moore etc cockel was on a 10 fight winning streak, unbeaten as a heavyweight and was the first guy to beat lastarza and mathews since rocky had.
After cockel they went for valdes as the next guy. All valdes had to do was beat Moore and he would have got that shot but he blew it.
I wish the valdes fight happened but if it had people would find something wrong with valdes, he wasnt that good. he lost 7 times whilst rocky was champ.
Valdes did edge charles one time but charles eclipsed this set back by sensationaly destroying walace and satterfield in bigger fights proving he deserved the shot over valdes. valdes win over charles was largly seen as a blip and the next name opponenet nino landed after that was moore which he lost whilst cockell landed lastarza and mathews.
At the end of the day over 9 rounds marciano floored moore 4 times before knocking him out. Moore beat valdes twice and never went down once in 25 rounds with valdes.

 

This is Chris Arreola in his last fight against an extremely game and tough 5' 11" , 210 pound Minto. Minto was 5' 11" about 210, the weight many here claim Marciano would have fought at today and twenty five more than he fought at in his prime. Minto is a former football player, very strong and fairly close to Marciano in body type.

Look at the match up and tell me what you think ?

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOebbdsSVcY[/ame]

Based on Rocky's specific size, style and strengths, I simply do not see him being able to compete with men much bigger and stronger.

Here's another similar match up ... Sanders v.s. Czyz ...

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTK5jESK20Q&feature=related[/ame]

I think the whole thing is simply too much to ask of the guy ...

 

shkor was an impresive fighter by modern standards. A big guy with a good run who held his own with the best hevyweights of the time and had a big ko win over mauriello. Was bonecrusher that much beter than shkor?
Sure walcott was a beter fighter, his win over shkor secured jersey joe yet another shot at the title. Louis also KOd shkor quicker than rocky leading old louis to deserve a #1 rating, especialy after beating bivins also.

 

with all due respect to yourself, a very fair question and to minto, clearly a very brave man, this is an unfair comparison. Marciano beat bigger guys than arreola and whilst he would meet guys head on like minto his punches would make more impresion with greater accuracy and impact. rockys fitness would also keep him sharper for longer, minto looks ok but his composure fades and his mouth hangs open after missing a swing or two- that never happened with marciano. With two handed power you wouldnt want rock close and he would hunt you down. A bigger guy would run out of gass like a deflated baloon forced to fight at marcianos pace.
joe frazier against mathis is a beter example.

 

Going into the Marciano-Cockell fight, Valdes had not been beaten in 3 years and was the number 1 ranked contender in the world. In 1953 he had been named the Progress of the Year by Ring Magazine.

Johnny Shkor was not a great fighter by any means, he won some and lost some and was all but finished by the time of the Marciano fight, but he still troubled Marciano who found it difficult to push the bigger man around and got badly cut during the fight. This is just against Shkor, a solid clubfighter at best, imagine if in his career Marciano had always faced such size disadvantages against world class opponents.

In a later interview Al Weill, Marciano's manager said that he did not like to match his fighters against big guys who could punch. He told Cassius Clay to avoid Sonny Liston.

 

Here's another similar match up ... Sanders v.s. Czyz ...

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTK5jESK20Q&feature=related[/ame]

I think the whole thing is simply too much to ask of the guy ...[/quote]

czyz was 5' 7 a former natural 165 pounder and sanders a whopping super heavyweight. Marciano was 210 when he playd baseball and 230 when not training its the wrong comparison. Rock was a short big guy who boiled down as was the trend then. joe louis and jack dempsey were the same they all boiled down.

 

I wouldn't compare Marciano with the likes of Bobby Czyz or Brian Minto but he was described as out of shape at 207 so I don't see how he would have automatically been a solid 220 pounds if he fought today.

 

If Holmes retired after 3years of being a champ and only 4years at the top he'd be undefeated too, but he went on much longer. Marciano has got an awful lot of padding on his record

 

Al weil was not always right. before he was prepared to invest in marciano he sent unbeaten quin and ross to rhode island to beat rocky so he could pull the plug on him. rocky pased the test winning both fights.
later marciano said in an interview that weil never belived in him until he beat rex layne. weil likely expected layne to beat rocky since rex beat walcot, satterfield, turkey thompson at that point. weil also had other fighters so it wouldnt mater had rock lost than fight either.

 

Marciano's career would probably have been shortened quite a bit by consistently fighting super heavy sized guys. Even if he beats most big contenders of the modern decades I think he'd be expected to slip up now and then, and he'd surely be figured out after a while? I haven't seen much of Marciano to be fair, but from what I'm hearing of his era and natural size it would take super human ability to defeat much larger guys on a regular basis