Rocky Marciano vs. Joe Louis

This is how I saw the fight

 

Actually it's a fine display of one of the heavyweight division's best jabs. I'd watch that one again, my friend.

I don't get mad at the tv often, but when that decision was announced for Briggs I could have broken the damn thing. Briggs never once looked in control of that fight, he damn sure never hurt Foreman.

 

Joe was extremely not himself, a couple of things just from watching the first half of the fight . Joe liked to bait you to miss and he would hop out of range and nail you ! The nathan Mann fight where he hopped back and hit Mann with a rear uppercut is one example. Joe decide to ride obvious telegraphed swings . The young Joe would have hopped out of range and counter with a combination.

Joe also would do more turning on the inside (godoy fight the final closing moments of conn 1 ) he would uppercut left turn pivot to the right another big combo, oh he would land the rear uppercut ,hook on rocky but wouldnt go into turning and cutting angles .

Joe was saved by his defense in the clinch, and a jab that at times worked (rockys game plan of drawing the jab ,parrying it with the rear arm and making his way in was a great tactic , and why he would feast on a lot of jabbers( Louis was able to land that jab at times on rocky but that was also Rockys way in. My scorecard was 4 rounds to 2 rocky with 1 even .

 

I liken it a bit to Berbick-Holmes as far as expert-jabbing, mostly one-way fights. Though both George and Larry dominated, Berbick at least made it somewhat interesting by (to paraphrase Larry Merchant) asking Holmes to hit him, hit him...which is exactly what Holmes did, with that magnificent jab, over and over. Briggs sucked ass through most of the Foreman fight (no offense to Briggs fans).

 

I disagree with the jab , Louis missed that jab substantially more than he landed ,got countered with overhands when he threw it and it lead to rocky countering him and getting inside to do damage , if anything this was a master class from Rocky on how to draw the jab and counter (I did a part break down of what rocky is doing in the george foreman vs rocky marciano thread) The credit deserves to go to rocky !

 

"I couldn't avoid those jabs, I just had to take them".

 

you know instead of being lazy (I know its hard for yall to not be ) you can watch the goddamn fights , in fact from the available footage I counted from 8 minutes to 9 minutes 45 seconds 1 jab landed out of 18 thrown for Joe, You can analyze the entire footage (if you are too lazy ,which Im gonna assume you are , I will do it . I bet Joe does not land 10 percent of the jabs he threw , for the very few that landed I am sure Rocky couldnt dodge em and they hurt but rocky actually had no problem with joes jab.

 

You are right, my friend. The Berbick-Holmes fight is one of my favorite fights to watch, even though Holmes was ridiculously dominant through so much of it (though I don't entirely agree with the judge who gave Larry 15 rounds, it wasn't far off). The Foreman fight was a bit of a snooze if you aren't studying the jab.

I watched the Louis Marciano fight again and gee, I guess I'm both dumb and blind. After an amateurish Marciano won the first couple of rounds (mostly by being the over busy aggressor), Louis started landing the jab and making Rocky miss badly. So...I guess me and @Glass City Cobra, amongst the rest of the world, shouldn't be writing in this forum about boxing. Louis might have won that fight, had he not obviously tired.

Also, I remember watching the fight and thinking..despite the fact that Rocky was still unpolished, I wonder how long he'd last against someone like Foreman? With his bumbling, wild misses, straight ahead lunging. Ali, Holmes, and Foreman would have eaten him alive.

All that said, of course Rocky was a top ten ATG and great fighter with a HUGE heart.

 

please stop, it's excruciating!

 

Louis in no way shape or form was winning that fight. He had zero control. Although I think this is a good experiment of how some people can see completely different things. At no point did Marciano look not in control other then slowing down enough one round. A few misses were always going to happen w Marcianos little arms. He had to lunge often especially on attempted counters and would occasionally miss. One of my favorite knockdowns is when he missed a left hook on Ezzard and came back over the top with a right. He was a machine. But anyway. No way Louis was winning zero chance. I agree he losses to Foreman. But it would be a rough night for him. Marciano didn’t fight like Frazier head first. He made his opponent commit to him. And Foreman would oblige. Would look more like the Qawi fight w Marciano performing better.

 

I respect your views, Gazelle.

 

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