Rocky marciano in the golden era

I think Marciano would have a easy time in the times Ali was champ in the 60's.

Liston was on the way out, so it was a matter of matching prime Marciano vs shot/old Liston. Liston was ready to be taking at some point.

After that, its just beating the likes of shot William's and Coopers until either he retires or the 1970's hits.

 

nah late 60's Liston gets ktfo by Rocky; prime for prime i think it's a toss up.
I see him beating Ali 2 times out of 3 in the late 60's, meanwhile he steamrolls the rest of opponents..
I think Frazier would be a much tougher match up for Rock then Ali; much harder to tell who would win between these 2..

 

He would n't get past Ali,Liston or Frazier in the 60's. Otherwise he'd do very well. In the 70's,he'd beat virtually everyone with the exception of Ali,Frazier,Foreman and Holmes.

 

rocky wouldn't touch ali
foreman and liston would blow him away.
frazier would beat him too, also larry holmes

 

These threads are always silly. Why would Maricano just parachutte into the 70's and fight every contender and name off the top of your head? He would be brought up slowly like Foreman, probably knocking off 30+ nobodies before moving up to test horses like Chuvalo and Peralta. He would likely KO fellow prospect Kirkman and upset the less motivated 73 Frazier in a hard fight for the title, perhaps with a shocking barrage of knockdowns.

Considering their careful management, Marciano and Foreman would likely be kept away from each other for the time being. I would be very surprised if they met on the way up, and with both being very green, who knows what could happen.

Rocky likely defends against Norton and the declining Ali before retiring. Foreman is the real "if" factor, could he be the Valdez of this generation who blows his chance at Rocky with loses to Ali and Young? Rocky certainly wouldn't be as active as Ali in the 70s, so title defenses would be much more scarce with the top fighters scrambling hard for a chance at him.

So yes, Rocky likely retires undefeated again with the same questions and criticisms. Of course Frazier and Ali were still top fighters but past their absolute best...Norton was chinny anyway, Young is a bum, Rocky ducked Foreman, Shavers, and Lyle, he retired to avoid Holmes..etc.

 

combatsdeboxeo, I'm a great admirer of Marciano; I've got to wonder, however, whether Marciano could sustain his viability over what appears to be a period of at least a dozen years; particularly as you are positing so many brutal wars.

 

That's how I'm seeing it. Marciano himself was only active for about 8 years. If he started in the 60s like Clay, he would probably retire around the time of Vietnam. If he came up like Frazier and Foreman, he would retire around the time they did by 75 or 77 at the most. No matter the era, Rocky is only going to be looking at about 10 fights over 3 or 4 years against top competition before his body falls apart as it did in the 50s. Rocky fighting everyone Ali fought over 2 decades, including Ali..is just nutty.

 

Of the top contenders... Marciano would beat Ellis, Machen, Chuvalo, Bonavena, Mathis, Shavers, Lyle and Quarry(fight of the year) but lose to Frazier(fight of the decade), Ali, Foreman, Holmes and Norton.

 

I once penned a fairly detailed scenario where I substituted Marciano in place of Ali.

I concluded that he would get past Liston due to the fact that his work ethic was slipping and that he would have made a clean run against the title challengers of the 60s.

I had him beating Frazier in the fight of the century, but being broken by the effort and retiring for good after Foreman beat him in Zaire.

 

Marciano would have his share of wins but let's face it....He's NOT going undefeated during this time period. Not against a crop of true HW's like Liston, Ali, Foreman, Frazier, Norton and Holmes. Size does matter if you're good and these men were good. Very good I might add. Rocky retired for a lot of reasons..one of them the wear and tear on his body from training and fighting. Imagine the wear and tear he would endure if he had to fight the above mentioned fighters plus other good ones like Shavers, Quarry, Bugner, Ellis, Patterson, Bonavena and Chuvalo. All of these fighters were at least 195-225 lbs not 175-200lbs. Talk about a grueling Schedule to look forward to.

 

Yeah, if he took Ali's place I could see it going down like that. But I think he would probably retire after most likely serving in Vietnam or beating Frazier. I don't think a Foreman fight would be attractive enough to keep him around, especially if his body was breaking down. It would be like the Patterson scenario, but you never know..its an intersting thought.

 

Nah, Here's Alli/Clay's 60s opposition:

Doug Jones 188
Henry Cooper 185..claimed to actually be 175
Sonny Liston 215
Floyd Patterson 196
George Chuvalo 216
Brian London 201
Karl Mildenberger 195
Cleveland Williams 210
Enrie Terrell 212
Zora Folley 202


Of the real big boys: Liston was on his way out, Terrell and Chuvalo were not power punchers, and Williams was literally shot. Marciano's opposition from say 1950 was 179-213 lbs.