Rocky Marciano fights Oliver McCall

Or maybe Marciano would fight at around 175 pounds at LHW, for at least part of his career?

Louis might have started at light heavyweight too and possibly spent a lot of his career at cruiser.

 

Maybe, we can't know. What we know is that some LHWs and MWs decided to fight at HW (Byrd, Toney, Jones, even Adamek) and they did with decent success. If Marciano tried to fight at HW, that wouldn't be out of possibility.

 

Sorry, that just doesn't make any sense.

BTW, a better example of hyperbole might be something like "Archie Moore could fight one fight at 210 lbs and the next one at 160 lbs. It wasn't unusual for him." Because Archie Moore went up and down in weight pretty wildly for some of his fights...

 

My point is that Byrd could fight at LHW at any point of his career. He didn't outgrow his division, he just added mass in a way that wasn't known 60 years ago.

Moore also could fight at LHW, CW and HW at the same time. He wouldn't be able to fight at MW when he fought at HW though.

 

Yeah, by running too much and not eating enough. Sapped his strength, power, and stamina too. He was never the same fighter after that.

 

Neither could Chris Byrd. You might want to look up his career on boxrec sometime...

 

But he could fight at LHW.

 

I was going through the channels last night and saw the Callum Smith vs. Nieky Holzken replay. If RM, exactly as he was in the 50s, fought today and cut weight to 168 he'd still be tiny beside Smith, plus he'd be even slower compared to the competition and his lack of skill would be more evident. Callum Smith is probably 185 by fight time and could be much bigger if he wasn't cutting to make 168, plus he is talented and skilled. IMO, fighting at 168, or 175 wouldn't benefit RM today. Smith isn't the only one, he is just the one I saw last night.

One poster mentioned that James Toney fought at heavyweight after starting as a middleweight. From what I've read, James Toney was a 215 pound running back in high school. Like most of today's fighters, he lost a lot of weight trying to be "big" for his weight class. When he stopped cutting weight, he was quickly a heavyweight again. The first day a guy comes in the gym, he hears that he should cut weight so he'll be bigger than his opponents. That a 215 pound athlete at age 17 could fight at heavyweight isn't surprising, that he could fight at middleweight is the surprise.

 

Again Pat M, you haven't replied to my post.

 

I have to go back and check what he weighed in against Holyfield and McCline. Oh, and he was 5-11, right? And had a 67" reach? And slow hands? And two left feet?

Or was he a 6-2 slick southpaw, slippery as elm with great footwork and handspeed and a 74" reach?

 

The thing I find odd about this argument is that it starts with his size.
When comparable examples are found, it switches to his style, or certain physical dimensions.
And that can go on for a long time until an example is found where a fighter exactly like Rocky succeeded in the modern division.

But how easy is it to find a fighter just like Rocky?
From what I know it isn't. He was unique, the way many legendary fighters are unique.

How come a smaller fighter who moves up has to be a really good boxer as opposed to a crowder/slugger?
Is Langford too far in the past to be used as an example as someone who moved up, and succeeded based on his punching ability?

 

But let's be real here.
Boxers today in gyms don't typically have encyclopedic knowledge of 1950's fighters.

Charles was a good boxer right?
How many trainers say they want their fighter to slip and jab like Charles?
Or Robinson? Or Walcott? Or Gavilan?

It's just not part of the nomenclature.

Additionally, Marciano wasn't a textbook fighter. Wasn't he known for going somewhat against the grain for how a successful fighter should box, even for his time?

Is judging a fighters ability based on how teachable his style is really a reasonable thing to do?

 

Let be real here... Of the undersized heavies over the past few decades who achieved any success, we have Toney, Byrd, Jones, all guys who were lightning fast and had great balance and footwork... and all who made fairly brief and well-crafted stays at the weight. What we do not see are truncated power punchers with poor balance swinging for the fences at every opportunity. Thems just the facts.

 

Tomasz Adamek wasn't a boxing wizard and he did pretty well. He was also quite small.

 

Uh, no he didn't (at least by championship standards) and

He was 6-1 1/2 with a 75" reach. And generally didn't fall over himself after throwing right hand bombs.

Look, I fully admit and celebrate that Marciano was a special fighter, a fun fighter to watch, a marvel in his own way... but that specialness has its limits. And we saw those limits skirted by some very old dudes who weren't exactly cast in the modern mold of heavyweights.