Rocky Marciano against Ali's opponents

Foreman 1974
Rocky loses at least these 4 fights

 

Any iteration of Rocky loses to Prime Ali, Holmes, and Foreman. He's a slight favorite against Quarry and Bonavena. He's a push against Liston and Norton. And yes I'm accounting for stylistic advantages and disadvantages.

 

Ali title opponents I'd favor Marciano to beat are Chuvalo, Cooper, London, Dunn and Coopman. Evangelista,Bonavena, Mildenberger and Leon Spinks are fighters Marcianos got a good shot at beating but I wouldn't favor him over. 50/50 sorta fights.


Foreman, Liston, Norton, Jimmy Young, Lyle, Holmes, Shavers, Bugner, Ellis are hard nos. Patterson, Quarry, Folley and Cleveland Williams are soft nos. I can't favor Marciano over Terrell, Wepner, Foster or Mathis just because of their size.

If Marciano fought the same 41 title contenders as Ali thinking he goes like 12-29. On your list he wins 1-2 with only 3 him having a chance.

 

Rocky Marciano beats all of Muhammed Ali's opponents of the 60s. A critique often used against Marciano is that he just got lucky fighting a lot of great fighters at the end of their careers. If that is luck, then, Ali also got lucky with fighting some of his top competitors when they were in bad shape, specifically Floyd Patterson with a bad back (herniated disc if I am not wrong), Cleveland Williams literally shot with a partial paralysis of his hip, and Sonny Liston with a bad shoulder and poor conditioning for the fight. These fights would have been much closer/harder for Ali had these fighters been in better shape. Muhammed Ali himself got the first fight with Sonny Liston rescheduled due to a hernia. None of these particularly debilitated versions of the above fighters beats Marciano.

Marciano's style was far more than just swarming his opponent; it neutralized his opponents advantages, that is to say, their movement and reach. By ducking and keeping his head away from his opponent, Marciano forced them to stop moving, and to bend forward to attempt to hit him. This caused his opponents to throw punches from a bad position/posture, reducing their effectiveness and allowing Marciano a chance to get inside. Marciano's fighting style was not hasty; he did not try to rush his opponent like Jack Dempsey, nor did he try to force himself inside like Joe Frazier did by continously moving. This makes Marciano seem slow at times, when he is actually just taking his time to find an opportune moment.
In other words, Marciano's fighting style basically never allowed his opponent to fight at their most effective range where they could hurt him (with big punches), instead they had to fight him where he could hurt them. Marciano proved anyway that he could take ungodly amounts of punishment in first match with Jersey Joe Walcott, while also being blinded with burning crap in his eyes for 4 or 5 rounds (7th-11th rounds if I recall correctly). It is the punches you can't see that knocks you out. How many fighters could replicate this endeavor, surviving that many late rounds with an All Time Great/Hall of Famer Walcott pummeling you with everything but the kichen sink, and still win?

Sonny Liston with a bad shoulder and poor condtioning is not beating Marciano. On a tangent: I keep seeing some people lauding Liston's skills, what skills did he showcase when he could not brute force his way to victory such as in the Ali fights? Ezzard Charles was not impressed by Liston and called him clumsy:
https://news.google.com/newspapers?...,1134237&dq=ezzard+charles+sonny+liston&hl=en

This leaves Henry Cooper, George Chuvalo, Ernie Terrell, and Zora Folley as notable competitors of the 60s. I can't see any of these beating Marciano either; Can't see Cooper or Folley doing better than Ezzard Charles or Jersey Joe Walcott, Chuvalo is though, both physically and mentally, but his punch output is less than Marciano and I don't see either of them knocking the other out, so it would just go the distance were Marciano takes it on points. Ernie Terrell "The Octopus" had a size and reach advantage, but his whole style was to clinch and disrupt his opponent which would just be straight giving up this advantage by letting Marciano in close. Marciano did some of his best work when up close and personal, wrestling his opponent and disrupting their posture using his head to push upwards into his opponents chin, thus opening them up to hard shots to both body and head.

Against Ali's 70s opponents he would pick up a few losses. George Foreman is a tough opponent for anyone, and a loss here is expected. But to say Marciano gets destroyed in a couple of rounds, because Joe Frazier was in their first match, when a completely washed and done post Ali-trilogy Joe Frazier went 5 rounds in their rematch is just flat out wrong. Larry Holmes could beat Marciano, but I suspect he would get overconfident at some point, eat a big one and go down. Holmes did say that when he got hit by Earnie Shavers Bazooka he got knocked out but woke up due to hitting the canvas, if he is on the ropes ala Walcott then he might just slump down instead. Holmes did have extraordinary recovery ability but a fast count by the referee is always a danger.
Joe Frazier and Jerry Quarry could go either way, and so could a match with Oscar Bonavena or Ken Norton as well, but I am less confident in them.

 

You are going to rock Rocky's fans world with that post

 

Nice pun.

Forgot to account for rematches so I guess 15-26? Gave him 3/5 of the 50/50s, 2/6 of the soft nos and one of the giants. Either way its hard to chart a path for him to get .500. Got to give him every benefit of the doubt and hope he scores an upset and no one gets any on him.

 

I agree with Ezzard Chares when he suggested no iteration of Liston beats Ali.

 

Beats Cooper, Quarry, Bonavena & Norton (although Norton has a very good chance of victory). Loses to the rest. Here are his chances of victory ranked from best to worst.
1 - Cooper
2 - Quarry
3 - Bonavena
4 - Norton
5 - Frazier
6 - Holmes
7 - Liston
8 - Foreman

 

If Ali gets demerits for his wins against Patterson and Liston because of their alleged injuries than Mayweather gets demerits for his win against Manny because Manny was allegedly injured.

 

George Foreman 1974 KO by 2
Sonny Liston 1964 KO by 3
Joe Frazier 1971 KO by 6
Ken Norton 1973 KO by 5
Jerry Quarry 1972 KO by 11
Larry Holmes 1980 KO by 8
Henry Cooper 1963 KO7
Oscar Bonavena 1970 KO by 10

 

Wow...... just...... wow.

 

You're giving the Rock a lot of Ls . @RockyJim

 

I'm not "giving" them to him. He earns them.

 

Loses against Foreman by tko in 5th round in brutal slugfest.
Beats Frazier by 14th round brutal KO.
Beats Norton by KO in 5th round.
Beats Quarry by 4th round TKO.
Holmes is 50/50.
Beats Cooper inside 3 rounds by easy brutal KO.
Beats Bonavena maybe on cuts or by wide Decision.