Rocky Marciano vs Chris Byrd

The version of Tua Byrd fought was in or at least near his physical prime, and in decent shape to boot. At any rate he still possessed all the brain juddering power he always had, as Moorer found out a few fights later. As for Wlad, he might not have hit his peak stylistically in their first fight, but he was fast, powerful, aggressive and more than capable of destroying many fighters the way the latter more safety first incarnation wouldn't have been able or willing to. If anything it was Byrd who was no longer prime in their second fight.

Point being: throughout his career Byrd consistently fought huge punchers (in both senses of the word) and not only survived their power but ofttimes beat them. People like to point to Ibeabuchi here, but he was very much the exception not the rule, and Byrd was relatively green himself at the time of the fight. If you were a betting man and believed that the Ike fight had laid the blueprint to Byrd's defeat you would have lost a lot of money over the years. Byrd, like any good fighter, learned from his mistakes.

 

It's the same as if Rocky had fought Roy Jones,...he would have landed bombs on any available target, arms, shoulders, etc., and both men would have been broken before round 10.