Rocky could dehydrate to super middleweight~

Alternatively he might simply cut out that battle, and go for a weight class that was more comfortable for him, where he could perform at an optimum level.

I get the idea that you are taking the most extreme examples of weight cutting, and presenting them as if they are normal, and necesarily desirable.

I think that it is a legitimate point.

We could probably perform all kinds of sick weight cutting experiments on various fighters, but it would drastically alter their attributes.

I am honestly not certain that the top light heavyweights today, are cutting a lot more weight than those of Marciano's day for the most part.

If you look at somebody like Archie Moor in a heavyweight fight, that is basically what somebody like Kovalev would weigh in the ring!

 

Yes, if he he was adding weight, but I this thread was about Rocky as he was I think.

And in any way, why would he add weight to be a small CW when he could be medium sized in a more prestigious weight class without adding weight?

 

No it really isn't.

Fighters have always done it.

I think that it is very unlikely that Rocky Marciano did it, because he was a heavyweight, but Jake LaMotta did it for example.

 

I mean if people want to say that Marciano would be a modern day SMW, then they have to say the same for other past heavies. But the implications of that would mean that men like Ali, Frazier and perhaps arguably the greatest generation of heavies, the late 60s to mid 70s era, would not be heavyweights today. In his prime, Frazier was 200-205ish with same day weigh ins. Ali was 210-212 pounds with same day weigh ins. Would they be modern cruisers or even light heavies? What about contenders like Shavers, Bonavena or Chuvalo? Would they be cruisers or light heavies?

 

Not directed at me, but I'll take it anyway.

Ali would probably do a Haye/Usyk, who are very close to him size wise, and make his name at CW and then move up to HW to make bigger money. Maybe he'd be a LHW his first one ore two years as a pro, but he was over 200 after being pro for two years and in all likelihood would move up to CW by that time.

Frazier was rarely below 200 as a pro and 197 at his lowest, so he'd probably never fight at LHW. Would he go up to HW, though? Being a 205-210 lbs swarmer... Hard to say.

 

The weight he was when he fought Louis.

 

We have two separate arguments here.

Could he make lightheavyweight (reasonable), and could he make supermiddleweight (highly unlikely in my opinion).

I don't see it to be honest.

Carl Froch was an absolute monster at super middle, and he was coming in to the ring in the low 170s.

Getting Marciano to that weight, is going to be something in the nature of a sick experiment.

Well I am sorry that you see it that way, but I think that a lot of people making your argument, cant distinguish between the fighter that he was, and what he would be in their hypothetical scenario.

It is all very well to say that he was a supermiddleweight by today's standards, but what sort of fighter would that super middleweight be?

 

I named LaMotta, as a fighter not too far removed from Marciano in the timeline.

If you want to go back further, Barbados Joe Walcott did it!

 

Lamotta didn't drain water weight. He starved himself, big difference. Lamotta wasn't anywhere as big as the big middleweights of the past 20 years. As a 5-8 man he looks more like a welterweight by modern standards.

However Lamotta cut more weight than the welterweights he faced at middleweight

It's natural elements of the sport like this advance

 

So Marciano has to drop twenty pounds to make super middleweight, but Frazier doesn't have to drop fifteen to make light heavy?

I can kind of see how this argument is being played by some!