Rocky Marciano vs Evander Holyfield

Well in the last Bowe fight he had hepatitis caused for eating bad food

 

Is that a satisfactory explanation for the rapid hair loss as well?

 

This would be a good clean fight!

 

How did it show? Many fight people say the first Marciano fight was charles best fight. Certainly his last great performance.

Charles had 62 fights in 8 years since the war. He served three years in the army where he did not fight at all.

 

Hello. Yeah, Holyfield was a light heavy in the 84 Olympics and then was a cruiserweight champ, but he was taller and had a bigger frame than Rocky. People say peds... If he was on peds right throughout his career, I don't know and won't really speculate. That talk or info came out when Holy was older. With both men on a level playing field in that regard, Marciano definitely has a real chance in this match up, but Holy faced bigger men Bowe x 3, Lewis x 2, Tyson x 2, Mercer and skilled southpaws like Michael Moorer x 2 while Rocky in his biggest fights faced La Starza, Charles, Walcott, Don ****ell, Archie Moore and 37 year old Joe Louis etc. I don't hold Holy's defeats in his forties against him. Rocky retired at 32 and heavyweights were smaller in his day generally. Holyfield faced a better depth of competition over longer in a stronger era, imo, was probably a cuter technician than Rocky and was a real ring warrior like Rocky. Marciano was cut badly a few times too. I gotta make Holyfield a favourite in this one.

 

Holyfield is taller than Charles and has a longer reach. He won Bronze at the '84 Olympic Games (he should have won Gold) in the LHW/178 Lb. division. Is anyone suggestion he was juicing at this point? He was already bigger than Charles ever was. Bigger frame, bigger neck, bigger arms, bigger chest. He was a bigger guy than Charles.

Charles actually cut back his training sometimes for fear of coming in too light for some of his HW fights. He could have always made the LHW limit of 175 Lbs. during his HW years. Any weight over 180 Lbs. for Charles had him looking a little soft in the midsection.

In Holyfield's 12th pro fight he fought Qawi for the WBA CW world title. He was 23 years old and totally ripped at 190 Lbs. Was he juicing? I don't think he was.

 

He went 10-13 after his fights with Marciano. Prior to Marciano he was 86-10-1. From 1946- until his loss to Walcott in 1951 he went 39-1 overall and 9-0 (5) in HW World title fights. That only loss was a close decision to Elmer Ray, he beat Ray by stoppage in their rematch. After those 40 fights he lost twice to Walcott (who he had already defeated twice), 1 out of 3 to Layne, once to Valdes, and once to Johnson. He was well prepared for Marciano but not in his prime.

 

He was not in his prime as you say, but I don't think that any active heavyweight other than Marciano, could have beaten him that night.

 

I agree with you on that.

 

I think to some extent Holyfield benefitted from and was able to capitalise on his speed advantage against a lot of the big heavyweights he faced in his prime - that advantage wouldn't be there against greater heavyweights closer to and smaller than him even.
Coupled with the odd drawback some of those big heavys just happened to have aswell
Dokes: Drug addled past prime etc
Douglas: no kinda shape whatsoever and looking for an easy get out to go spend his money
Foreman: being the size of a sumo/being 42/having no balance whatsoever
Cooper: being a bit of a journeyman in all honesty
Holmes: being fat/old/losing his contact lense etc etc

First prime, in shape, in form heavyweight with desire/will beat him

And the second in shape, in prime, in form heavyweight (actually blown up light heavy) with equal desire/will also beat him.

He beat a shadow of Tyson in reality great performance though it was and then butted him to the brink of the bite in the rematch.

Beat a fat slobby version of Moorer in their rematch.

Got whipped twice by Lennox and once by Ruiz (!?)
And he butted Rahman out of it aswell

Prime greats who are near his size and don't offer a slow moving target he's not going to look quite as good against and he was always there to be hit which is not a good thing against one of the biggest hitters in heavyweight history couple that with the fact that Holy would have to look for Marcianoand I think he's gunna have a very hard night - drawing a comparison with the Ezzard fight is a bit of an over simplification but I do thinkMarciano wins this and by knockout

 

he was not a bigger frame than Rocky in the Olympics and back then Evander was no growing boy either.

questions were raised at the time. The rapid hair loss has never been experienced in the division before or since.

Evander fought some genuine super heavyweights like Lewis, douglas and Bowe who all would have had to have reduced their size to compete over 15 rounds. It's not like Evander beat them out of sight anyway since both Lewis and Bowe beat him as well. Much of the other heavy men were heavy men rather than actual giants who would not have got past Archie Moore, Charles or Walcott. Even the 37 year old Louis would have dealt with Stewart, Bean, Cooper, Ruiz and old Joe Louis was still younger than much older men Foreman and Holmes.

They were no smaller naturally than Evander yet they all beat bigger men too.

You are entitled to favour Evander, he was a fine and great champion but I'm not sure depth of competition really comes into it when Holyfeild never quite entirely conquered his own era. I can't see Rocky losing to Moorer.

 

You forget to mention that going in against Marciano only Walcott had beaten Charles decisively since his career got going after the war. His loss to Johnson could have went either way I scored it for Charles and so did most of this forum. The loss to Layne was hometown shenanigans and is documented as such. From what I have read the Valdes loss was no worse than the close loss to Elmer Ray in his prime. Also Charles crushing wins over rated fighters Satterfeild, Wallace and Reynolds after losing the title make for sensational viewing. As fighters Layne, Satterfeild and Wallace were as good as, if not better, than all the challengers (outside of Walcott) Charles defended against as Champions. Post champion Charles would have beat Valentino, Barone and Lesnevich types just as easy if not better than he did as champion.

 

I don't think there is enough reliable evidence that Evander was ever any taller than Charles was. It's neglegable at best. According to stats he got taller as he got older even though he (presumably) shaved his head. Evander was dwarfed by 6'3" Holmes.

If you take the age of Evander in the olympics he was 22. At age 22- 24 Charles was still in the army but by 25 he was 175 pounder. It's apples and oranges.

 

You made it pretty clear that you don't like Holyfield. I must say, Holyfield was definitely a bigger man than Charles. At age 21 Charles was still fighting at MW/160 Lbs. He filled out to a solid LHW/175 Lber a few years later, but in his early LHW fights he was more of a SMW (before there was such a thing).

Holyfield made Bowe quit during a sparring session and thought very little of Bowe as a pro HW. He took him lightly but shouldn't have. Bowe fought the fight of his life in his first fight with Holyfield and never before or after reached this level. Holyfield fought well but came up a bit short. Bowe got away with countless low blows and never lost a point, plus the KD was BS IMO. Holyfield fought a much smarter fight in the rematch and won by decision... this time Bowe took Holyfield lightly.

 

No, Charles weighed 169lb at 21 and was fighting some lightheavyweights and at the same age Holyfeild weighed about the same compeating at lightheavyweight in Amateur tournaments. Apple's and oranges.

I agree but this has no baring on Evander being significantly
bigger by nature or better than the Ezzard Charles that Marciano fought. He wasn't.