Marciano in other eras with out the respectfull champs.

Guys , I made size comparisons. Pease read what is written. Czyz was 5' 10" and built like Rocky. He was a world champion at 175 and defened the title weighting over 180. Minto was 5' 11" ... I am showing the size match ups that Rocky would have to overcome. Assess his style and strengths and make your own decisions ...

 

Lennox Lewis vs 5'9 Fortune:

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnvQIOwp3-k[/ame]


I guess Rocky would last some rounds against Lewis based on this performance. There are those who think he wouldn't go a round but that's an exaggeration. Size matters but it's not everything. These are great fighters we're talking about after all. Not clubfighters like Fortune.

 

Even though it is a different era with different ways of muscle gain. Marciano,Louis,Dempsey would absolutely be able to put on muscle with a Mackey Shillstone.

Marciano did fight 6"4 and 6"5 opponents and fighter weighing about 250, Louis and Dempsey also beat the best of the Big men of there era as well as Charles,Moore and Walcott. The smaller men were the better men.

Also with the tiny waist of Louis ,Dempsey,Marciano they would be able to bulk up and may have to with some of the oversized guys of the 80. I am a beleiver that a good big man can beat a good small man but I think that rule is null and void in the Heavyweight division as long as all of the fighters have crazy power.

With the 3- rds in championship battles and only a 12 rd limit I see the old timers doing well

Lennox Lewis was the best of the big men and he never KOd a man after the 8th rd and never got off the floor to win.

Vlad and Vitali have but the were never forced to fight at the grueling pace that a Marciano,Louis or Dempsey would have them fight

There are no such things as a time machine so when you compare fighters of different eras you have to adjust how a fighter would have been in the others era based on training methods and the amount of rds they are fighting.


Lennox Lewis would not be 240 if he fought in the 1950 era and Mike Tyson and Shannon Briggs would not have the supplements available in that era


Its all speculation but if we are talking about fighters of today fighting back then we have to eliminate enhancements and modern muscle building

If we are talking about fighters back then fighting today we have to advance there growth (weight because of modern muscle gain methods).

If a 5"9 middleweight like James Toney can go up to 210 (when he was fit and not the 238 fat version) and hold his own with the Heavy's today, I certainly feel fighter like Louis, Marciano and Dempsey can and remember Toney did not have the natural heavyweight power that these men possessed

 

A lot of fighter were ko'd by Shaver but how many, he Ko'd Norton but was himself KO'd and beaten by smaller and shorter men than himself Quarry,Stander,Stallings,Johnson(180lbs...other than Norton Shavers was ko'd by the men mentioned above and also by Tex Cobb, Bernardo Mercado,Ron Lyle

How many quality fighters did Ernie KO

 

******e Fortune was not even a club fighter, you could not compare him to Ron Stander,Don Cockell, .....thats like comparing Lewis to a 254lb Humphey Jackson who Marciano KO'd in 1

very poor example

 

Of course they could but I'm not convinced about the positive effects gaining muscle has on a boxer. I think Marciano was better off fighting at 190 than being a 210-220 lb mountain of muscle with no stamina.

But those fighters weren't any good. I wasn't really talking about Louis and Dempsey here, they have earned their reputations as giant killers. Marciano hasn't.

Marciano was described as "out of shape", "pudgy" at 207. How much could he bulk up without losing some of his stamina?

Don't forget that Marciano would have lost to Walcott in a 12 round fight and Louis to Conn. They were 15 round fighters.

For the most part he didn't have to.

Wlad could gas out as he did against Puritty, Brewster but it's also possible that Marciano can't figure out how to deal with a 8 inch height and 10+ inch reach disadvantage.

I don't think the circumstances were that much different in 1950's than they are now.

There were still a couple of good big guys, Marciano just didn't fight them. And don't say that some of Rocky's opponents beat them, the triangle theory never has and never will work in boxing. Marciano had some struggles with the inferior Johnny Shkor who was too big for Rocky to push around, the same could have happened against Valdes or Baker.

Not saying that Marciano wouldn't win but he might not have looked as great as expected. Moore beat them but Moore was a slick stylist, not a fighter who relied on his physical strength and stamina like Marciano.

They'd still be big. Tyson was 200+ lbs all his life, Lewis trained down to 220 early in his career. Briggs on the other hand...

It's often the smart and slick boxer who does better against the giants despite a disadvantage in size. If you walk right into a 6'5, 230+ lbs man when you're 5'10, 190 lbs yourself, you're going to run into some trouble. You may win but it's not going to be easy.

 

I was actually bringing him up in defense of Rocky but I wasn't very clear about it. If a clubfighter like Fortune could go 4 rounds against Lewis then Marciano could surely go more. The average fan thinks Marciano would be killed by Lewis in one round because of the difference in size.

 

You use ****** Fortune as an example. He was 5"9 but he was KO'd before he fought Lennox by Patrick Smith in 2 (who was KO'd by many) ******e was also KOd by Buster Mathis Jr in 8 and ******e went on to be ko'd by the likes of Colin Wilson,Bill Zubrun.Kali Meehan,

 

Read my post again. I used him as an example in defense of Rocky because the similar sized Fortune was such a poor fighter yet went some rounds with Lewis.

 

There is a difference of being a cardio trained fighter and a fighter who smartly puts on weight like Holyfield, Moorer and Jones.. Archie would be a good example of weight gain/loss. He was 190lbs when he beat Valdez and Baker the big boys

Marciano weighed 250 when Patterson was Champ and although was not in his perfect shape looks strong and double the size of Floyd in a TV interview

If you are speculating that Marciano avoided Valdez, do you really think he should have avoided Moore who Beat Valdez 2 times...should he have fought the bigger fighter or the better fighter.


Lastaza, Moore,Walcott,and Charles all beat the bigger men of the era and were number 1 contenders. The smaller men were simply the better men

Valdez, Dan Bucceroni, Baker, Wallace, were all beaten by the men listed above I can name many of the other big fighters of the time that were beaten such as 6"3 Cleveland Williams 31-1 being Ko'd by 174lb Bob Satterfeild

Marciano wanted to finish up against Valdez to get to 50-0 with 44ko's and Nino was mentioned but in a elimination Valdez was badly beaten and dropped for a 9 count at the end of the 10th rd by Satterfeild, a man who had lost to Ezzard Charles KO2 and Archie Moore

 

Sorry a little quick on the draw was I

 

I am a firm believer that Great = Great in any era....and if we are to compare we must adjust the fighter to the era in question but this would only be in the heavyweight weight division where the 12rd limit has had the most impact in size and weight because of NO limit

I can name endless fighters in the last few decades that could lose 30lbs and be better

 

I don't think Marciano is like any of those fighters though. He has to be in perfect condition in order to win. He put himself through hell during training camp and it made the actual fights easy. If he has to think about adding weight and putting on muscle then that'd likely take away something from his conditioning.

He was hardly in fighting shape though. In his prime he walked around at 210+ lbs and wasn't in shape. He had to train down to around 185 lbs to fight to his best.

Al Weill actually admitted that they avoided Moore because of the risk/reward ratio but when the public demanded the fight, Weill said he had no problem with making the fight. Marciano obviously feared no man.

Valdes was not popular but he wasn't any less known than Cockell and presented more of a threat and was ranked higher. Marciano was coming back from his nose injury and chose to fight a former light heavyweight Don Cockell. I think it was a calculated move. On the other hand you have a 6'3, 210+ lbs heavyweight with a 80" reach and a notable jab and then you have an overweight 200 lb former light heavy with a slugging style and little power.

LaStarza didn't really beat any good big men. Walcott beat some decents ones. Moore was impressive against Baker, Valdes and others, he was too slick for them. Charles lost a SD to Valdes and was upset by big John Holman after his losses to Marciano.

Cleveland Williams was also 20 years old and just 200 lbs at the time. Satterfield hit like a super heavyweight and proved this over and over in his career by taking on and taking out far bigger men. Marciano didn't when you think about it. You can only try to justify his ability to deal with bigger men by comparing him to other smaller fighters of the era who did fight bigger opponents.

 

marciano was outweighed 27 times of the 49 fights as it was -and he did more than fine. proberbly nearly 70% of his fights were against heavier guys and he still knocked 100% of them out. Liston was outweighed 4 times and stopped 1 of them- 25%.
If rocky was around in a later era would he have fought so often in 8 years? Frazier fought less than 40 times in 17 years. In an 8year career in another era fighting less often Rocky would do fine fighting 100% heavier guys.
Remember his own era was a division that included charles, walcott, moore, layne, maxim, satterfield, valdes, curtis shepard, john holman, bob baker,elmer ray, lastarza, nardicio, bucaneri, baksi, turkey thompson, bivins even throw in old LOUIS its not weak.
cream rises to the top in a dog eat dog one champ one top ten period. there are no jose romans,coopmans, dunns, evangalistas, ossie ocasios,leroy boone's,lorenzo zannons, marvis fraziers amoung them. People who say Rocky's era was weak are too lazy to study the form of his era. it stands up.

 

marcianos record is up there to be attacked. the famous undefeated 49-0. experts argue that Nobody can posibly be that good and rocky dosnt look good enough to be the exception to the rule. They say it was a weak era or he'd be too small now because thats all they can say. They posibly only say this because even that cant be proved.
Had Marciano came back like jim jeffries he would posibly be 49-1 or maybe 55-3 who cares? The record stood at 49-0 largly beacuse his career did not run its full course but which ever way you look at it all the best guys 1947-55 lost to guys marciano knocked out. this can be proved and is a fact. its a hell of a record that you cant say about evryone -even in their peaks. So when we assess how he gets on in another era this holds a lot of weight.