rocky marciano vs larry holmes

He might have picked up a loss along the way, but that is not the point.

He lived in an era populated with technical boxers, and he put them all to the sword.

There is no doubting his effectiveness against this style.

 

It is a swarmer on technical boxer match up.

The swarmer typically over performs against the technical boxer.

Doesn't necessarily beat him, but does better than their relative levels would suggest.

The numbers don't tell the whole story there though.

Some of the decisions were controversial, and the series went to that number of fights, because that's how may it took to establish a clear cut winner.

Also LaMotta was on the slide by the end of the series.

Yes he did have no choice but to adopt that style, but the fact remains that it is the most dangerous one for a fighter like Holmes, because it is the most disruptive to his particular style.

The rule of thumb is that a boxer beats a slugger, a slugger beats a swarmer, and a swarmer beast a boxer.

The boxer puncher is a bit of a stylistic compromise.

Obviously this will not always be the case, but that is where the stylistic advantage lies.

Holmes would know exactly what to do, but he wouldn't be able to do it, or at least a lot of what he tried to do would misfire.

I am not saying that Holmes could not win, but it would be a rash man who had any confidence that he would!

 

Obviously a disappointment is fine, after all how boring would a forum be if we all agreed on everything.

But we are basically matching an ATG rehydrated light heavyweight against an ATG Heavyweight. There comes a point where size over takes styles. It's usually about 15lbs, there's about 25lbs of difference here.

Marciano's main advantages that he held were, power, heart, stamina and chin. Here he does not have the power to KO Holmes imo (Shavers didn't and I highly doubt Marciano hit harder than him). Holmes is also equally (if not more) tough as Rocky and has fine stamina in his own right.

I'll ask what did Rocky do to show he hit harder? Joe dropping an iron chinned Ali and stopping Chuvalo and Machen is more impressive than Marciano stopping Walcott and a shot Charles.
Also who did Rocky fight who hit remotely as hard as Foreman? That's the only fighter who Joe crumbled against. I highly doubt Rocky would have done better under that type of pressure. Joe took a punch fine, he showed grit and chin in the TiM and FoTC and the Bonavena fights.

Maybe. It's close, but Joe was more skilled, Marciano was off balance after his punches, Joe was ready with another hook one after another.

This. I don't think Rocky beating Holmes is realistic, it's too far a jump imo. He has no advantage other than power, and Holmes could take his power imo.

 

That sounds like my life at college and I have a crap work ethic! I'm a right lazy c**t,

 

Who's the liar? Read a few of his posts when he used to be Perry and would run five marathons a day on the treamill in his garage. If he was a boxer, he'd be Aaron Pryor and only because I like rhyming slang.

 

I love Ez with the best of them but even I wouldn't argue that. And certainly not of either version of the man who fought Rocky who was older, fighting above his best weight and not the tiger he had been before he killed a man in the ring.

 

The "rule of thumb" is not one of Newtons laws of motion.

Some swarmers have beaten sluggers (Frazier over Bonavena, porter over berto) and some boxers have beaten swarmers (byrd over tua, ali over frazier).

If the guy with a stylistic "disadvantage" is better in many areas and is more well rounded they can flip the script.

Holmes was not only a boxer, he could be a counter puncher or stand toe to toe with his feet planted. You know this so why be disingenuous and act like the only thing he did was move and jab?

Holmes would not be misfiring at all, rocky was not hard to hit. He had the speed and reach advantage. Did you even read what you wrote before you posted it?

 

Hang on. You said he was 'arguably the greatest fighter ever' and now he makes your heavyweight top 25? Is he up against another 24 heavyweights when we consider the 'greatest fighter ever?

 

Holmes slashing one-two's would likely tear Rocky's skin open at some point. A faded Joe Louis had a jab and not much else yet his jab was causing some facial damage to Marciano.
Rocky could hurt Holmes at any point but I don't think he could keep him hurt enough to win.
Holmes TKO on cuts in fun fight. Marciano would do everything he could within the rules and a bit outside the rules to win but it wouldn't be enough against Larry Holmes.

 

Because Charles is probably the best P4P fighter ever, but he isn't the best HW ever. And yes, he's definitely up with other more accomplished fighters, he's likely in top 20 but I didn't want to push him too high.

 

So you're saying that Ez was probably the best P4P fighter ever but was either so far past his best natural weight and/or so far past his best timewise when he fought at heavyweight that he scarcely makes the top 20 or 25 of that division? And the heavyweight version of Ez that Marciano fought had started to slide a bit from his best at that weight.

You see, that's the problem with Marciano. His best wins all carry a big asterisk.

 

That's because most of his work was at LHW, not because lack of talent at HW. He simply didn't spend as much time at HW as at lower weights.

Peak Charles at HW is on Dempsey/Marciano level in my opinion, which is definitely top 10 material. He was a bit past his peak in the first fight, but he was still great fighter.

 

He lived in an era of old champs ,past their best still fighting and still having some success because it was a poor post war decade.

 

First you said he was top 25, then top 20 now he's top 10 heavyweight. You're floundering a bit, here.

There was no such thing as 'peak Charles at heavyweight'. Just like there was no peak Duran at middleweight. Doesn't mean they weren't great fighters but they became great because of what they did at a lighter weight and at a younger age.

Peak Charles came earlier and was smaller than even a 50s heavy. By the time he fought them, Rocky always seemed to catch fighters on the downturn (Louis, Walcott) or who were not natural heavyweights (Moore) or, in Ezzard's (and probably Archie's) case, both. That's one of the reasons I cannot rate Rocky very highly. I think he just had incredible luck to come along in that void which, to be fair, he made the most of.

 

Over half Charles fights were at heavyweight and over 11 years of a19 year career.
He had under 30 fights at lhvy.
Find one list ,apart from yours, in which Charles features in the all time top ten.