Marciano - One Man's Opinion ...

He did everything he could have done. We don't know for certain what might have happened had he confronted subsequent greats, but Moore studied him carefully before their classic, and discovered Rocky was better in competition than Archie was led to believe beforehand.

Ali was also surprised by how proficient a 45 year old and long retired Marciano was in a staged setting, and this was an Ali who would have been at his athletic peak if in action at the time. I think Rocky's reputation has obtained tremendous mileage from Muhammad's testimonial.

 

:good:goodi think that sums him up well.against better competition ie liston and foreman i think he would have come off a poor second, but he beat who he had to.

 

Marciano is certainly an all time great fighter.
Would give ANYBODY styleistic problems, his heart and determination are unseen today. he was like a gladiator back then.
His wars with Wallcott, charles.. just add more credit to his heart.
RIP.

 

Fair comment.

 

I disagree. I think Marciano's style was tailored made to fight the big men successfully. Charlie Goldman even stated this in Marciano's book. How he thought Marciano would be in against much bigger, taller heavyweights so he taught rocky how to fight low in a crouch(making himself a smaller target), and gave him a 270lb punching bag to hit so he would be able to move those big heavyweights around with his punches. Turns out he never ended up fighting any good real big ones. Whether or not he would be successful is one thing, but I feel rocky's style was trained to fight the big men, and break them down. Smaller elusive boxers are the difficult matchups for the Rock(which is amazing since he fought so many). Now, that doesn't mean rocky beats lennox lewis or riddick bowe, but it certainly means he matches up well with many big heavyweights throughout history..especially if he comes in the ring today at 205lb. Rocky actually made great use of his lack of tools(reach, height) by fighting short...it gave him much greater leverage.

Whatever...Just ONE man's opinion.

So Dipping, Ducking, Weaving, Parrying, in a crouch thus making yourself a smaller target takes super human ability?

 

I'd rate him about tenth in my all time heavyweight list. That's no disrespect to Rocky,there's just others that I'd rank above him. He ceratinly was number one in his era.

 

Toughest SOB to ever set foot in the ring..best conditioned fighter who ever lived...
trained himself down to 189lbs....he knew he didn't have the height...reach...etc.of other heavyweights....that's why The Rock worked his ass off..unlike any fighter before or since.
It was his"kill or be killed" attitude that carried him through the beating from Walcott in 1952..and allowed him to win the title....to storm back after having his nose split open down to the bone against Charles in their 2nd fight in 1954...you really don't see that kind of intensity in the ring anymore....that's why he was a great fighter...

 

Hey Norton...When all else fails...bring up color....same ****...different day!!!

 

I think that some people, while being complimentary about him, tend to under rate him based on what is obvious i.e his size and general style.

There are certain dimensions to his game, that are not imidiately obvious, that quickly became apparent to anybody who shared a ring with him from Louis to Ali.

I dont know who said "it hurt to bump into him", but they probably sumed it up best. He could seemingly make an oponent hurt for every second of every round, and he was a lot more unpredictable than people think.

This is one fighter who definitely had the devil inside him.

 

Strong as you feel, KN, (more anxious to pick a fight than give an opinion) don't expect to change your mind about Marciano, but I thought I'd give you my impressions of Rocky, having spent alotta time around him.

I watched him train in NYC, in camp in the Catskill mountains, and fight live.

He was an acquired taste; it took a long time. But, even the skeptics on Jacob's Beach became believers.

He was clumsier sparring than you could imagine -- a ham-‘n’-egger against most half-decent boxers in the gym...and it didn’t help that he resembled the Pillsbury Doughboy in layers of sweat clothes, wearing 16-ounce gloves that looked like pillows on Thalidomide arms.

Seeing him before the bell gave no hint of his being any kind of a fighter -- let alone world class -- more like a catcher to hone some one else's tools.

A first-time observer would’ve advised him to pick up a hard hat.

The only lesson he could teach was: what NOT to do.

But every guy who looked like he boxed rings around him -- pinned his ears back -- never missed him with jabs -- came out of the ring lookin' like he dropped from a 10-story building and landed flat-footed.

Rocky's cuffing, pawing, mauling, grazing shots, flicks to the sides when he was tied-up on the inside, impacted them like they'd been bumped by a rhino. From ringside, the only evidence was an "OOPH!" grimace and quiver.

Rocky was ponderous. Fighters could see the punches. They weren't surprised; they were beat down.

Every sparring partner who looked sensational against him, said the same thing exiting the ring: "I hurt all over."

The wunderkinds and Robinson-clones that watched Rocky in the gym or at the Garden and licked their lips at a future match thought of him like cancer: He could only happen to the other guy.

Off a stat sheet, any number of guys now would be favored over him, but doin' it in the ring would be a sobering experience.

 

I enjoyed reading that JG.

 

I arrived at three quaters of your interpretation just by reading the testimonies of his opponents.

 

Louis was the one who said it hurt to bump into him, and you can actually see this happen in the footage of their match. For him, the major unpredictability was Rocky's hook, which really came of age in their match, producing the first knockdown. Moore discovered that Marciano was not as susceptible to the hook as he expected. Rocky and Goldman continually tweaked and improved his performance as he went along.