Picture of Sonny Liston and Rocky Marciano

It's a joke based on the fact you have an obsession with ignoring facts and using photos as your argument. First Andy Ruiz, then Bob Satterfield, now Rocky and Liston.

 

Nah. He actually rates Rocky #3 in heavyweight history narrowly above Lewis. He is able to do this whilst still acknowledging probable size disadvantages against the very best of the biggest.

Hopefully he won't mind me quoting his summations -

#3 Rocky Marciano (49-0)

Number three, instead, is Rocky Marciano.

His numbers are astonishing. He was undefeated, the proud owner of one of an “0” tested by the best available competition; as a Champion, he only met his #1 or, on one occasion, his #2 contender; he knocked out every ranked man he ever faced; he defeated forty-nine heavyweights, including some near-great ones; he scored forty-three knockouts.

But it is numbers, too, that describe his limitations. Sixty-eight, his listed reach in inches, would provide a 14” reach advantage to current Champion Wladimir Klitschko. Five and ten, his height in feet and inches, makes him seven inches shorter than the previous undisputed Champion, Lennox Lewis. Weighing in at around 185 lbs. during his title years, it is probable he would have turned professional at light-heavyweight under modern weigh-in rules.

Another number that is concerning is the average weight of his top class foes. Among his meaningful opponents, only the overstuffed Don Cockell (205 lbs.), the remnants of Joe Louis (213 lbs.) and Lee Savold (200 lbs.) in Savold’s last fight meet the modern criteria for heavyweights. Worse, the only #1 contender that Marciano never met was Nino Valdes, a fighter in his prime and of broad dimensions who might have satisfied what has become a missing requirement in Marciano’s puzzle of majesty. As it was, the heavyweight title was contested almost exclusively at the modern cruiserweight limit during the reign of “The Rock.”

What this adds up to is a sense that Marciano never proved himself against bigger heavyweights, and given his own size that is a concern to some. Those who love and admire him though seem to think nothing of picking him to defeat the likes of Lewis and Klitschko however, his pathology savage enough for them that he can overcome even those enormous Champions.

I understand why. At his best, Marciano fought like the exhalation of some monstrous motor-oil engine, an avatar of some indestructible metallic god, come to boxing to plunder. Unerring, aggressive, brutal, he made a boon of his short arms, slamming in punches that would be untidy if thrown by a longer-limbed fighter, but coming from him they were compact and murderous, hard to see coming, impossible to absorb for long. He learned, too, pleasing technical augmentations forced upon him by Charley Goldman, who gave him balance and head movement, taking from him the swarmer’s bane of total availability and making him, at least, a less glaring target. And he ravaged the opposition, Archie Moore, Ezzard Charles, Jersey Joe Walcott, all were out-boxing him at one time or another only to find themselves on the ground looking up with glassy, moon-hunting eyes.

“In defiance of accepted chemical analysis that humans are made of bone, blood and muscle, we must disagree where Marciano is concerned,” wrote the Pittsburgh Post Gazette in the aftermath of The Rock’s first fight with Charles. “There must be steel and iron somewhere in his makeup.”

Steel, and a heart the size of a dump-truck compensate for that squat, iron frame. Marciano could not be out-boxed, and if I personally pick him to be out-punched by every superheavyweight that has lifted the undisputed title, I cannot deny that he displayed true greatness in his own era. It is hard for me to imagine him beating many of the men in the top ten – and impossible for me to dream of a top ten without him.

My number three with a shrug rather than a bullet, Marciano ranks here by default because he just gave me fewer reasons to demote him than the others – his ring record was, after all, flawless.

Other top 100 heavyweights defeated: Ezzard Charles (#17), Jersey Joe Walcott (#20), Archie Moore (#38), Rex Layne (#71), Roland LaStarza (#79)

 

Brilliant write up from McGrain.

 

Lol write properly* I think it's less cigar rolling and more literacy classes for you mate.

Providing he could put Marciano away early before his infamously suspect tank, heart and/or sense of control over the situation gave out and which Tyson are we talking about here? The great "Catskill" Mike or the Mike who confused pugilism with cannibalism and quit on his stool/wedged between the ropes?

Lol oh boy are you ever insightful; well let's reverse the situation, would it really surprise anyone if a duo of 7'2 and 320lbs (hypothesis intensifies) bruisers were able to put Lewis and Bowe in bodybags of their own?

Marciano could have stopped Liston and there's nothing you can even try to do to disprove that, barring the invention of a time machine.

(Please don't try. I worry that your brain may suffer a convulsion.)

Again, more cheap hypothesis that almost anybody on earth (including a chimp) can produce. Also, don't try to police other people's grammar when your own is abysmal (and ridden with curses.)

I'd start working on that time machine fella!

 

So many points covered in such a short space.

 

Daniels went the distance with Satterfield,[ in one fight,]Moore,Dunlap,Henry.
Bob Baker, who you said couldn't punch,floored Omelio Agramonte 8 times.Three months earlier Agramonte had gone the distance without hitting the deck against Joe Louis and he had managed it 3 months prior to that !
You're kind of stupid do you know that?

 

Tyson couldn't put a 190lbs face-first, no defence, punch bag away early? You're barmey.

In 30 years if there are athletic, quick 7'2, 320lbs elite boxers with huge power, then yeah. They'd be able to beat Bowe and Lewis, just as easily as Lewis and Bowe would beat Marciano.

There's nothing YOU can do to prove that Marciano would stop Liston. I don't think anyone around here is claiming Liston couldn't be stopped by Marciano, I know I'm not.

Everything you've said is that, as is everything on this forum is that. Get of your high horse.

 

No definitely not, Rocky not lookin at his best for sure.

 

Lmao when you said Tyson couldn’t put a 190 pound face first fighter I thought you were referring to Holyfield....whom wasn’t in Marciano’s league.

 

Those guys were all lightheavyweights. Lil Frankie was originally a middleweight. He had been knocked out six times already with the lightest guy being just 169lb. against the hulking Cleveland big Cat Williams, this all time great heavyweight puncher, the biggest man Frankie has fought until now wouldn’t you expect Frankie would get sparked out? But no. Frankie went the distance no problem with this monstrous heavyweight puncher. Twice! In his very next fight he fights heavyweight Sonny Liston and last just one round. Chuvalo knocked Frankie out the one and only time they fought. Terrell also knocked him out. In two tries the supposedly harder puncher Cleveland big cat cannot budge him?

That pre ranking performance was before Baker had the hand trouble that famously reduced Bob to a powder puffer. And Joe Louis did floor Agramante anyway.

I am not the one flogging a dead horse about Cleveland Williams still being a better puncher than Marciano when in truth he twice couldn’t knockout a former middleweight guy Ernie Terrell did first time.

 

Barmy* I'd much rather be considered crazy than ignorant or flat-out stupid, which is what your response indicates i.e completely ignored my agreement with Tyson being able to put Marciano away early. If Marciano survives the initial onslaught and takes Mike into the deep end though, it's a long paddle back to Brownsville.

And Marciano did have defense, albeit subtle/primitive and not in the form of D'Amato's erratic and stylish "Peek-a-boo" fashion. I'd say his own offence and high resilience compensated pretty damn well for that also.

And this is why I have nothing but contempt for hypothesis; best case scenario we wind up with a stalemate.

Congratulations, another stalemate.

Mate, virtually every comment I've made on this thread has been in defence of Marciano being trashed in other people's hypothesis. Shall we try for nuclear disarmament next?

 

Just one more comment I'd like to make on the whole 'hypothesis' thing. I can't remember who coined it and I'm paraphrasing but it goes something like this.

"All you can really ask of a fighter is be the best of his day by facing and defeating the best of his day."

That is as fair and objective as you can possibly get and a standard that Marciano more than fulfilled. A standard that hypothesis (personal bias, hatred, favoritism etc.) completely contradicts.

I'm not saying you have to like, idolize or romanticize him, but at the very least you should respect him.

Case closed.

 

You won’t get that on this forum. No other HW gets the doubt treatment such as Marciano.

 

The truth will always come out on top my friend.