People pick Joe over super heavies but not Marciano

But Marciano is too small you say! Yeah well Frazier isn't exactly Lennox Lewis himself.

1. Frazier best weight was 205, Marciano around 185-190. Not exactly a massive size gap. Marciano 5'10, Frazier 5'11. Both likely are cruisers today. Frazier was MUCH closer to Marciano in size than modern day heavyweights.

2. Frazier was quicker but Marciano was a harder puncher, especially in the right hand. Anyone Frazier could hurt, so could Marciano. Therefore, if Frazier hit hard enough to hurt a super heavyweight, so could Rocky.

3. I know people don't want to admit the above because it feels like downgrading Ali to say he struggled against a guy who was more similar in size to Marciano than Lennox Lewis. It doesn't downgrade Ali. He was a great champion.

4. Frazier and Marciano had similar styles. Frazier wasn't a slick, Jimmy Young type boxer who could tag and not be tagged. Like Marciano, he would have to cross alot of dangerous real estate against a power punching super heavy with dangerous power. He never showed a Usyk or Holyfield type chin.

 

Only difference i will say about Tyson is that he was a legit muscular 220 pounds and proved he could handle modern sized heavies.

 

Frazier wasn't 20 pounds of muscle heavier. He wasn't an Adonis like Holyfield. He was just heavier. Not saying he was fat at 205, but he wasn't muscular. And even if he was, I'd wager Marciano was at least his equal in physical strength. And Walcott at 195 was more muscular than Frazier at 205.

Frazier was faster via hand and foot, that's true. Marciano had his own brand of defense where he got low and made himself a small target. I think it was Charles or Moore that said he was deceptively hard to hit.

 

Yes, heavyweights over 200 pounds, many of whom would be making cruiserweight and would fit in better with the heavies of the 30s, 40s and 50s than 90s and today. I mean, lets not pretend a 6'1 205 heavyweight is closer to 6'4 230 or 6'6 250 than to 6'0 195 pound fighter. So beating Bonavena isn't much different than beating Jack Sharkey as far as size than beating Anthony Joshua. Zurdo was 200 pounds when he was stopped by 196 pound David Benavidez and most of the 200+ pounders Frazier beat where closer to Zurdo size than modern sized heavyweights like AJ.

Marciano might be smaller than Frazier but equal to or perhaps greater than in physical strength, similar durability and hits harder, especially in the right hand. Those things can make up for a 20 pound size gap. And perhaps, Marciano may have done better against modern heavies than we think.

 

We don't know how Marciano would be with added weight, because one we never seen it and 2, fighters don't train today like they did in the 1950s or even 1970s. With PEDs and modern training techniques, who's to say he would be slower with added muscle? You can say the same about Frazier. Who's to say Joe Louis would put on 20 or 25 pounds of muscle and be just as fast but not Marciano? Which is why we can't use fantasy versions of fighters that never existed.

We just don't know. We can perhaps make an educated guess. But at the end of the day, it's a guess.

 

Bugner also was given a tough fight by a faded Henry Cooper. I think Marciano could manage against Bugner and would likely stop a prime Henry Cooper.

Cooper was also 189 pounds in his fight with Bugner.

Beating Ali is great, but resume alone doesn't tell us how 1 does against another particular fighter. Frazier had a much better resume than George Foreman in 1973. He had beaten Muhammad Ali. The same Ali that turned around and knocked out Foreman himself. Frazier was decimated by George Foreman, despite his resume.

Less prone to cuts, I'll give you that one. That's a good advantage that Frazier has.

Former light Heavyweights is a misnomer. They were legitimate heavies that were beating the best heavies of the day. And in the ring, none were 161-175 pounds. Moore was 188 pounds for the Marciano fight and just coming off a win over the #1or 2 25 year old heavyweight contender. Charles was 184 when he went 15 rounds with Rocky Marciano and was a former reigning heavyweight champ with 9 title defenses under his belt and one of the best pound for pound resumes in the business.

Floyd Patterson was also a former light heavyweight, but if I wanted to denigrate Liston's win over Patterson, I might call him a "former light heavyweight" which disguises the fact that he was a 2x reigning heavyweight champion.

 

I'm not saying that no one should pick Frazier to beat Wlad but I am asking for consistency. The same attributes that you say Marciano has no chance of beating Wlad with are the exact same attributes that Frazier has.

Both would not be heavies today. Or at least have a career at heavyweight. They might venture to heavyweight to fight a hand picked opponent and grab a belt.

Both fight in the same general style with their own flavor of seasoning to it. But in both styles, it requires them to come at much bigger, hard hitting opponents.

Both have similar levels of durability. If Marciano can't take a AJ uppercut, there's really no reason to think Frazier can and vice versa. I'll concede that Marciano was more prone to cuts. But Frazier seemed more prone to swelling. But Marciano stood up to similar punishment from Walcott and Charles that Frazier did from Ali. And I'd give Walcott the edge in 1 punch punching power over Ali. Although Ali landed more on Frazier on their 3 total fights, so Frazier took more overall punishment over the long haul.

Frazier was bigger than Marciano, but let's not get carried away on "bigger". Frazier was by far closer to Marciano size than he was to Wlad's size and it's not close. And in a H2H clash with Frazier, Marciano would make up for his smaller size with similar strength and punching power and I'd say his single shot right hand was harder than Frazier left hook.