Rocky Marciano vs. George Godfrey

But not every era has its plethora boxers depleted by a world war. nor does it have 38 years old, [that's old for the 50's,] champions and 41 and 37years old contenders and 3 ex light heavies in the top ten.

 

Cockell was a gift wrapped present for Rocky ,Don got his ranking from beating Mathews a false alarm,and Lastarza who was diminished from the beating Marciano had given him,and who himself had earned his shot by beating the similarly diminished Layne. Marciano's corner, as was their prerogative pushed Cockell into a 16 foot ring where Rocky proceeded to hit him low several times,butt him.kidney punch him,hit him after the bell, and once while he was on the floor,all with the impunity granted him by the incompetent refwho never once warned him for his trangressions.though he did warn Cockell!
It wouldnt have made any difference if Rocky had fought clean Cockell was out of his depth. Marciano would certainly have been dsq'd in the Uk though!

 

Charles had lost 2 of his last 4 fights,1 to a lght hvy Johnson whom he is always banging on about beating Valdes.Another top post by you!

 

Thanks Mac! Means a lot coming from you. I'm extremely busy with college, so don't have much time for lengthy posts, but every time I try to stop responding, the dishonesty and revisionism is to much to leave alone.

 

*just an aside, to no one in particular.

Generally Nino Valdes' name is spelled Valdes with an s.

One occasionally sees an old article which uses the z but the overwhelming number and best sources spell it with an s.

This is not a variant of the same name. Valdes with an s indicates a Portuguese root. Valdez with a z indicates a Spanish root. Valdes, being Cuban, of course came from a Spanish speaking country, but the spelling of his name seems to indicate he had ancestors who emigrated from Brazil or another Portuguese colony.

I don't mean this as a criticism of anyone, but I think most will want to spell his name correctly if alerted about it.

 

The double standard on age is interesting.

I just went over to boxrec to study their top 50 heavyweight ratings (I know boxrec is not official, but it is easily available)

The highest rated man, Usyk, is 37, and undefeated in only 21 fights.

Of the top ten rated heavyweights, 9 are over 30, 4 are over 35, and 1 is over 40. Of the top 25 rated heavyweights, 21 are over 30, and 5 are over 40. (it is notable I think that 20% of the top 25 rated heavyweights are over 40)
.
None of the top ten have more than 3 defeats. Only 2 of the top 25 have more than 3 defeats. (Chisora with 13, and Takam with 8. Chisora is 44. Takam 43.)

Only 5 of the top 50 rated heavyweights have more than 3 defeats. 16 are undefeated. 21 of the top 50 have had less than 20 pro fights.

My take:

1--There has to be relatively few fights between men in the top 50 with most of them having so few defeats. So most of these are untested fighters.

2--The current heavyweight division is made up mostly of men who are old or getting old but still relatively inexperienced as pro fighters.

*Now I understand that size counts. So perhaps these men on the whole would easily handle more skilled but far smaller men from decades ago. But I don't see this as being of much value for an historian. The question for me is was the fighter big enough in his own era where he is fighting men from the same world he knew.

Bottom line--the current heavyweight division on the whole is terrible. It is made up of men who are past their physical primes (judging them against top athletes in other current sports) and yet relatively inexperienced, and untested against the other top men. I don't see any reason to care about whether size would allow these mediocrities to have been dominant several generations ago.

Primo Carnera probably would have beaten Sugar Ray Robinson, but at some level, who cares? I think most boxing fans would much rather watch films of Robinson fights than Carnera fights.