Rocky Marciano vs Chris Byrd

Yeah, that's why I fancy 37 year old Louis over him.

Exactly, I only find Marciano and Tua to be superficially similar and one is an all time great and the other is a contender that hung around the ratings but failed to capture a single belt in a soup of alphabets.

 

LOL @ the two guys that voted Byrd by KO

 

He seemed to do well enough. Savold and Brion are ordinary enough contenders. He knocked Savold out and gave Brion a bad beating in their rematch. Brion was a sturdy mauling spoiler that would only be stopped once in 11 losses at the end of his career. Bivins, Beshore, and Agramonte were all kind of fringe contenders that would be in and out of the ratings, he couldn't capture old Joe Louis glory against, but did better than most would against them in one sided point wins.

I would have liked to have seen Louis in shape against Layne and Henry in real fights. The exhibition footage of the Layne fight looks like a real enough scrap but Louis is about 230 and soft looking. He did knock Valdez out prior to challenging Charles.

 

There is no way he's an ideal opponent for Rocky. I pick Rocky but I think he loses rounds first.

On a tangent though:

Flat footed is an interesting thing though that I could go on for hours about. I'm not sure it's a negative as much as a style. If you have good reflexes and upper body movement, planting your feet can be a way of slipping up close and getting purchase on the counters, especially if you're the quicker man in the pocket.

 

Back on the thread, I do feel Old Louis gets a hard rep round these parts. He was the rightful number 1 contender with nothing but physical presence and a jab.

He could definitely earn Tua's respect with the odd 1-2.

I mean Old Louis is no worse than Rahman and he was the lineal HW champion (for whatever that is worth)

 

I just watched the Byrd-Tua fight again.
Tua was worse that I'd remembered, not sure what was going on with him there. For all I said about him being easily befuddled by Byrd's slap-boxing, I still can't understand why he didn't attempt to land a hard punch to the head. Byrd wasn't doing anything especially inventive or tricky in there. Tua's trademark left hook to the head was completely absent, he could have at least tried step to his left and put the left hook over Byrd's extended right lead, which is how you're supposed to fight a southpaw anyway. He never challenged Byrd like that. Not sure what Tua's problem was, he looked in relatively decent shape for him, I think he was the lightest he'd been in years, would have expected that to make him sharper.

 

I don't think flat footed is a negative either. But if you're going to attempt to outpoint a short-reached swarming puncher by light-hitting for a full 12 rounds it would make sense to get on your bicycle at times.

I think a feather-fisted boxer type is the worst possible style to be when you're going up against a relentless hard-punching swarmer.

 

Because for all the talk of his chin, Tua wasn't one to take risks for the sake of victory like a Marciano or Tyson. Byrd put him into turtle mode with flicking jabs. He had no urgency and usually took what was given to him as opposed to creating openings for himself. Byrd gave him little and by the end had him so scared to move, he was clowning him in the center of the ring at points.

Tua has no business being mentioned in the same breath as the great pressure fighters. He's a HW Arthur Abraham. I don't care how much he weighs or how durable he's claimed to be, a 215 pound feather duster stood in front of him and bossed him.

 

I always felt it was the body work of Byrd that put Tua off.

I never considered Byrd a good body puncher but that night it seemed to work for him and Tua couldn't block it.

 

Segura vs Calderon?

 

A decent version of Tua would destroy an old Louis in a fashion that would have boxing banned in many states. Louis liked to fight in Tua's range, already had his issue with hookers and in the old version had really bad reflexes.

His balding head would reside in the 5th row at some point.

 

Tua is so overrated on this forum it's actually ridiculous.

 

I am speaking only of the version of Louis that fought Marciano. I don't think it is overrating a prime Tua to say that. Louis was fighting on fumes, had totally shot reflexes, was stiff as hell and only had a left hand.

 

You'd pick 37 years old Louis to beat a prime Rahman?

 

But not the nearest facsimile to Marciano Byrd faced?