Does Rocky Marciano get unfairly criticized for his performance against Tiger Ted Lowry? People call Lowry a "so-so journeyman," mostly because of the high number of losses on his record. However, if you look closer at his career, and what people said about him, it seems like he was a defensive boogeyman of the sport. Harry Matthews for instance, considered Lowry to be a world class fighter, on par with Rocky, and had immense pride in beating him. Lowrys story reminds me of Augustus. Emmanuel Augustus gave Mayweather the toughest fight of his career according to Floyd: "During a 2012 conference call with boxing reporters, Mayweather said Augustus was the toughest fighter he had faced. "I'm going to rate Emanuel Augustus first compared to all the guys that I've faced," Mayweather said. "He didn't have the best record in the sport of boxing, he has never won a world title, but he came to fight." This, despite Augustus losing 4 of his last 6 fights. And his final record of 38-34. If there was no footage of Augustus, what would we make of this? That Floyds toughest fight was against a so-so journeyman? Has the "Rocky got exposed by a journeyman" narrative gone too far? Does it reflect a larger problem regarding the level of scrutiny his legacy has to endure?
Very interesting, another fine example is James Tillis and Mike Tyson. Tillis was on a 3 fight losing streak prior to facing Tyson and gave Mike all he could handle, two more rounds and he would have likely beat Tyson. Every champion slips on a banana skin or two on their title journey.
Pernell Whitaker said the same thing about Freddie Pendelton a man who I think had lost around 20 fights! He said trying to hit the lanky Freddie was like trying to hit a grease spot, some fighters train harder for big fighters like B.Douglas who cared more about upsetting the odds against Tyson after his mother died than months later when gave up and lay on the floor against Holyfield.
No, I don't think that he does. It was a poor performance for a great fighter, even given the obvious context of it being early in his career. It was what it was though.
