rocky marciano vs larry holmes

This running sub-topic has me laughing so much it's making my morning

Again, no disrespect Houdini. Funny is funny, as you know.

 

He can win on points, by winning rounds based on activity rate and roughing Holmes up but it goes to the cards.

Nah, any outcome where Marciano wins is unlikely.

Completely different fight. 71 Ali is roughly as good, or worse than, 80 Holmes. Whilst 71 Frazier is better than any Marciano.
And Frazier was bigger, faster and more aggressive than Marciano. He also had better footwork and defence. Ali had a weakness to a specific punch that got through all the time against lesser fighters.
Frazier threw this punch almost exclusively.

Most of the time yes, but Holmes was 1. Much better, 2. Much bigger and 3. Could be a boxer puncher when he wanted to be.

What? What prime opponents did Marciano beat? Holmes has about 15.
Mercer, Witherspoon, Snipes, Shavers, Berbick, Weaver, Norton and Williams were better than Layne and Walcott.

And it maybe blasphemy but I'd pick Mercer and Witherspoon to beat Marciano

 

Rocky is undersold in this thread. I don't think he should be favored, but Holmes isn't some kind of physical giant that would be too advanced for Rocky. I also think that calling Marciano terrible defensively is just too much. Frazier wasn't that much better, sure he was faster but Rocky was very tough to hit on chin cleanly. Rocky also was more versatile with his attacks, though I agree that Frazier was more relentless.

Saying that 1971 Frazier is better than any Rocky is just opinion, but it's not something you can prove by results. Marciano had some weaker performances, but his fights against Charles and Moore proved that he could beat P4P GOATs who weren't smaller than him and he also win very tough battle against Walcott when he wasn't in his prime.

Holmes is better than any fighter Rocky faced, but Larry never faced ATG swarmer similar to Rocky either.

Some people overrate Marciano, but he's extrmely disliked in this forum. I don't know why, he was great character and great story. Someone who overcame more obstacles than probably anyone. His resume is excellent, he beat great fighters and you can see it by watching his fights. Who cares that Charles and Moore fought at LHW? They were elite heavyweights who would definitely beat most Holmes opponents.

 

I would have to disagree there.

We are matching two all time greats, who often swap places on all time lists, and Marciano has the stylistic advantage.

That has to translate into a fairly good likelihood of him winning?

Marciano was more of a two handed fighter than Frazier, punched harder, and took a shot better.

He was also a bit busier.

I would also say that Holmes was more vulnerable to a right hand, than he was to a left hook.

It is kind of in the nature of being a swarmer, that the other guy is much better technically, and has some kind of physical advantages.

It is a style optimized to overcome such advantages, as far as is realistic.

The argument in Marciano's favor, would be that he generally went for the #1 contender, while Holmes picked guys off before their prime, and cherry picked softer touches.

When you factor in this, combined with the fact that neither fought in a particularly strong era, it is very dicey arguing the case for Holmes based on the quality of his opposition!

Don't worry, we don't burn heretics here!

 

The argument in Holmes' favour is he was an old man fighting young men ,whereas Marciano was a young man fighting old ones!

 

Marciano had the punch to KO Holmes. Larry dropped his jab every time he threw it. Marciano’s hardest punch and it was world class was his right hand.

Frazier in contrast had no right hand and Holmes would never be bothered by it. Larry defended well against the hook which was Joes only real weapon. Frazier was the only hwt champion to never score a KD against any pro opponent with his right hand.

 

Holmes got up from Shavers bomb, he would survive Marciano's.

 

Frazier knocked Tony Doyle down with a left hook, right uppercut.

 

Then he must've had a hell of a left hand. You don't always have to rely on your opponent's weaknesses to win. You can rely on your own strengths and still stand a chance. After watching Patterson-Johansson I, would you say that Patterson was a sucker for the right hand? I wouldn't say so. It's just that Johansson had a great right hand. Holmes wasn't susceptible to a left hook, but Cooney still caught him plenty of times. Because Cooney had a great left hook. So Frazier can still go in there and do what he does best, regardless of Holmes' weaknesses.

 

Frazier certainly would do his best and he may or may not have beaten Holmes. (In the end Cooney did not beat Holmes, he was knocked out. Holmes did a great job nullifying his hook)

However Marciano had the better tools to do so. He would have continually hit Larry with his right over that very low dropped jab.

Both Ali and Holmes would need to fight through hell to beat Marciano.

 

How do you post a dribble? Can you also post a free throw? A bounce pass?

 

You can certainly have 2 all time greats close to each other on a top 10 list and one is far likely to win 9/10 due to styles. Thats kind of the whole point. It happens in reality.

Just as an example, Robinson beat lamotta 5/6x. It would be incredibly foolish to bet even $1 on lamotta winning a 7th encounter. Or for an even more extreme example, Liston koing patterson 2x in 1 round (they shouldn't be too far apart on a top 20 hw list).

At least 4 posters have already broken down the advantages/disadvantages ratio for both holmes and marciano and holmes has far less disadvantages in this h2h matchup by any objective observation. Yes normally a slugger troubles a technician but holmes was more than that. I would not favor Aaron pryor over mayweather even though on paper his non stop volume could bother Floyd's defensive style. Mayweather, like Holmes, could make adjustments and wasnt a 1 dimensional guy who only stuck with plan A.

If all it took to beat Holmes was neutralizing the jab and cutting off ring he wouldn't have reigned as long as he did! He could be a boxer puncher, a counter puncher, he had an iron chin and wasnt afraid to let his hands go. That's not even getting into his great head movement, hand speed, timing, etc which were all on another level compared to rocky.

 

Simple fact for simple minds.
Holmes was new school, a school that still exists and still had prototypes reach the championship level.

Marciano was old school, a paradigm which has not merely faded but become entirely extinct... And was even by Holmes' day.

It's called the evolution of the sport and it has happened in every major physical endeavor.

I don't make fun of the simple salamander for being what he is. Neither do I view him as a rightful competitor to my stakes.

 

Technically Holmes was wide open for Marciano’s best punch. Not good. You don’t see fighters like Marciano today as it takes to much for a hwt to fight that style. It takes a tremendous amount of skill, training, conditioning and toughness to be successful. All attributes hard to find in today’s very low skill hwt world.

 

"Wide open". And yet, he only got dropped twice by a right hand in 50 fights (23 title fights). Moore and Walcott dropped Marciano with a right hand. That's two knockdowns.