Rocky Marciano vs Primo Carnera

Carnera: 6'5 85' reach 260 lbs
Rocky: 5'10 68' reach 185 lbs

15 round fight.

Interesting factors:

-Carnera fought a prime Max Baer for 11 rounds and what people forget is Carnera had a sprained ankle yet showed tons of heart getting up more than 10x. Carnera wasn't ever counted out and always got up.

-Actually has a pretty good record against big heavyweights. For instance, he KO'd the 6'6 224 pound Victorio Campolo in just 2 rounds. KO'd 6'3 246 pound Pat Redmond in 1 round. 6'4 246 pound Sam Baker in 1 round. Quite a few guys who were 220+ and 6'3 and over who got brutally destroyed early are on his record so we know he had genuine heavyweight power.

-Carnera knocked out the 6'2 207 pound Ernie Schaaf with a jab:

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He knocked out the slippery cagey Jack Sharkey with an uppercut.

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The three best ingredients for giving a short come forward aggressive fighter stylistic troubles are: a solid jab, a powerful uppercut, and good wrestling/clinching ability. Carnera had all 3. He also would be enjoying a tremendous advantage in height, reach, and physical strength.

I had thought about this matchup, and unless Rocky lands A LOT of shots and thoroughly breaks Carnera down with non stop pressure (while avoiding getting hit too much himself), he is not winning this fight. Keep in mind Rocky had to throw everything but the kitchen sink at a 38 year old 188 pound Archie Moore and needed 4 knock downs to knock him out. Rocky ended up with a black eye trying to get past the jab of a 37 year old heavily shopworn Joe Louis. Rocky landed bomb after flush bomb on the chubby former middle weight Don Cokkel and couldn't manage to floor him until the 8th--after mixing in a few head butts and low blows. All 3 of these men had been badly hurt, stopped, or knocked out in multiple other fighters and weren't known for their durability and Rocky needed to land a high volume of shots to break them down.

I pick Carnera to win by TKO within 10 rounds. Rocky lacks the speed, defense, and explosiveness to stop the Ambling Alp from bashing his face with his jab, smothering him, outwrestling him, and landing that heavy uppercut. Rocky's face would be a bruised mess, he'd be down on the cards, and he'd be down on the mat at least once before the ref has seen enough. Just a horrible clash of styles. Rocky, tough as he is, would not be able to impose his will with his usual volume punching and non stop aggression against a man with more than a foot in reach and more than 70 lbs of muscle over him.

 

That never happened. Carnera always got back up.

Plenty of guys got back up facing Marciano. Some didn't go down at all.

 

I started a discussion that is way more competitive than people want to admit.