He was facing a depleted division. And his decision against Charles is dubious at best. For all his faults, at least Shavers had a trump card, one exceptional facet to his game and enough supporting facets to keep him in the mix.
How do you gas in the 8th round and then continue to box well for an additional 3 rounds? Maybe we aren't agreeing on basic definitions. My understanding of "gassed" is that you're completely spent and barely able to throw more than one punch without gasping for air. I don't remember Lyle ever looking like that, including the Ali fight.
He considerably slowed down and his punches had no snap. He was def struggling. The way I see it if someone losses their speed and snap after several rounds and their throwing less they’re gassed. At least in the Ali fight. Start of round 8 on
Maybe we do have different definitions because I always used tired and gassed as basically the same thing and you can see it here as well.
That’s your point? Standers best win was also Lyles best win! The guy you’re mocking, Stander, has as good a win as Lyle. At least Rex beat champions.
Tired and gassed are two completely different things. Lyle was "tired" against Ledoux in the 10th round. He had less steam on his punches but was still throwing hard punches with bad intentions that would knock out an ordinary man. And the key part here is he didn't stop, he was clearly straining himself but kept a high output despite it being the very end of the match. Gassed would be Foreman vs Ali from maybe the 7th round onward. He had a very low output and was only throwing one punch at a time in an obvious robotic manner. Another key indicator is that he never went back to how he looked earlier in the fight moving forward. In other words, literally nothing left in the tank like a car about to run out of gas. Lastly, when a fighter is gassed, if they miss a punch it completely knocks the wind out of them and they stumble ready to fall. You yourself admitted Lyle caught a second wind and went back to having a higher output in the very next round against Ali. As I said, I don't recall any fight where Lyle is just standing there with both arms down completely defenseless, gasping for air, stumbling after missing, or having such a low output that he only threw one shot at a time. Therefore it's strange to claim he had "stamina problems" when he did 10-12 rounds multiple times without gassing and won while going the distance. One more thing I would like to say is, im not impressed with a guy having "good stamina" when you look at the numbers and realize the guy is only throwing like 15-20 punches a round (many of which are just jabs) with a very cautious and elusive style. That doesn't tell you jack ****. Lyle was a lot busier and more aggressive than some of these so called elite fighters who would barely throw punches. Lastly, in regards to comparing the stamina of Lyle to Rocky, Rocky mostly fought smaller opponents, many of whom chose to back off and fight a more cautious style when they realized mixing it up with Rocky wasn't a good idea. Lyle was fighting bigger men on average and many of them had a much higher output+more aggression. That's going to take a lot more out of you. He was getting blasted in the face by shavers, Bonavena, Quarry, Foreman, etc. Rocky was basically having to chase smaller guys around who would jab at him then tie him up or block/cover up then try to get the hell out the way and only opened up when there was a clear chance.
Yeah, in contrast to Shavers who faced amazing 1976-79 division, when Leon Spinks was a champion and parkinson Ali was still world class fighter... It didn't gave him much in real life though, Shavers is probably the most overrated fighter ever. Everybody knows him, but his resume is built up around trash cans.
Oh yes....Earnie Shavers. Among his scalps: Ken Norton 35 years old. Top rated and still a top fighter but odd this gets built up by people that dismiss the Rock's wins based purely on age and their performance against the Rock. Jimmy Ellis 33 years old. Since losing to Ali some years ago, I believe he was rated based off an 8 fight win streak against literal novices. He lost to every noteworthy opponent after this and retired. This win is Championed by the same people who dismiss The Rock's win over Ezzard Charles, who was 32 and 33 I believe, earned his rating by beating actual contenders, and actually still beat some noteworthy guys in his gatekeeper days after losing to the Rock. Jimmy Young. Was an 11 fight novice when Shavers beat him. Nevermind, Shavers who is universally praised as the hardest hitter was often just barely over 200 lbs before he got chubby. The contradictions are amusing, especially because of how extreme they are in this case, comically so.
Lyle wasn’t fighting men with more output then Rocky and getting tired or gassed is having bad stamina. I don’t think he was capable of knocking anyone out with those weak punches at those points. They had no snap. Marciano threw about 48.7 punches a round all power. That’s gonna wear on Lyle very quickly. Having the likes of Ali and Foreman leaning on you and pushing you will also wear you out. you’re right about Rocky not fighting a heavy handed big man so who knows how he’d react? I’m not sure it would affect his stamina. He liked wrestling with bigger guys to wear them down and get in close . I don’t think Lyle would want to stand in front of Marciano either. It wouldn’t make sense from a stylistic standpoint to give up your reach. Layne tried standing in front of Marciano who to me was a lighter version of Lyle with trade offs on some skills (think Lyle was a little better overall). It was one of Marcianos easier fights of elite competition. Style wise I think Lyles in big trouble this fight. I’d pick Lyle to very live against say Walcott because of styles but not Marciano.
The problem with your statement is that in the fights where Lyle got tired, a lot of it had to do with the fact his opponents were making him miss and countering him such as Young/Quarry or they were beating the crap out of him and he gassed because they stood in front of each other trading bombs. Rocky is certainly not going to outslick Lyle and make him miss when countering him with fancy technique to tire him out. And he doesn't have the size and strength to just stand right in front of Lyle and tire him out from trading bombs. Which was my main point: that context is everything and you can't look at 2-3 isolated incidents of Lyle getting tired and come to the conclusion that he might lose due to "worse" stamina. No I'm not saying Lyle had stamina comparable to Rocky, but rather that if Rocky was missing and getting countered all night he'd be gasping for air and slowing down too. And yes, a large part of my argument is Rocky wasn't getting nailed by skilled large 6'3 200+ opponents so his stamina wasn't tested in that way like Lyle. Many of Rocky's opponents were either older and/or closer to light heavyweight in size with a more cautious style.
The era in question was ruled by Leon Spinks, barely 200lb himself and a light heavyweight amateur. If Rocky needs to worry about being nailed by 200+ opponents how come cruiserweight sized Ossie Ocasio could twice beat Jimmy Young right after Young took Foreman and Norton to the wire? Spinks and Ocasio should never have been so relevant if being two hundred pound plus was such an issue. Ron Lyle could not convincingly beat Gregorio Peralta, Joe Bugner or Scott Ledoux. He lost against Jerry quarry. So why is he going to be much threat to Marciano?
The best Frazier prime, fotc or before, v’s the best Lyle, an joe f’s him up in 8. That bob and weaving was hard to time an then he’s on you
That’s actually what Rocky did best. Made people miss and countered. Great at countering the jab. we will never know but in Marcianos fights on film against his 200 plus opponents it wasn’t a problem ever. I can’t see him getting gassed against Lyle (maybe Wlad with his style and ability to lean and clinch Lyle didn’t do that). think I’ve seen Lyle get gassed enough against other guys that it would be a massive issue w Marciano. We will have to agree to disagree on that.
