Marciano v Bowe

And his trainer was right. However his positioning, timing and abilty to read a situation allowed him to capitalise on this clumsiness or awkward coordination. Rocky would swing one way, miss and come all the way back round and land before the other man could make him pay. One time lucky but two, three, ten times?

Often when he missed the follow through put him too far out of range for a counter or he would be facing the wrong way so it was hard to nail him when he missed. Too often his opponent paid the price trying to hit him when he looked "open". The speed was there.

 

Rocky had speed because he could land his shot first. Maybe he pulled the trigger first so his punch was already on its way or maybe his punch was shorter, either way if he got there first it was speed. Awkward speed, still speed. Nino benvenuti once described Carlos monzon starting slow punches way back that would catch him out because Carlos could alter the direction and speed up a punch mid flight. Perhaps this is a same kind of thing? Unconventional speed used another way.

 

Marciano was a fantastic feinter, his hands are constantly moving all over the place. Its very confusing. While the right hand that KOed Walcott in the first fight wasn't exactly slow, it was hardly the quickest punch. But it was set up beautifully with Rocky faking a left then quickly pulling back and delivering the right. Walcott could have avoided such a punch easily if it wasn't for that feint that forced him to move directly into it.

 

Ha, we must have been posting that at the same time.

I think he could be quick with certain punches at points like the left hooks I pointed out but in large part he stayed in middle gear, using lots of feints to set things up.

 

I have no idea what this means. So far as I remember, I am allowed to express my observations on both rounds, also. You seem more concerned about the differences between you and I than those between Marciano and Bowe. Frankly I am flattered. Thank you.

The reason I felt compelled to relay that observation is more pertinent to the point of this thread... What would happen if Marciano operated versus Bowe in such a manner. Bowe would have made him pay much more than Matthews would have. Also, Bowe, at 6-5 with an 81 inch reach, with much more strength than a Matthews (if you doubt this, talk to guys who fought or sparred against Bowe) would have been much harder to find and would have made Marciano pay a much steeper price. My only concern would be that Bowe allows Marciano to close the gap and gets content to trade inside. And as a lazy fighter at times, he did have a tendency to do this. Those are my thoughts, at least.

Two brutal hooks, quickly delivered once he was in range. Brutal hooks for a lightheavy to take. Would they flatten Bowe? I don't think so just those two. He took hellacious shots from Cooper, Holyfield, Golota, Hide... et al. and rode through most of them. Look, it's patently obvious that Marciano isn't concerned about what Matthews can deliver in return. He keeps working the body with lefts and rights, missing as many as lands, telegraphing everything, but doing with concern whatsoever. Again, to steer the topic away from your desire to engage in some sort of tiff and back to the topic at hand, if Marciano tried this against Bowe he would be flattened in a couple rounds.