Rocky Marciano vs. Sonny Liston

Thats the first fight. I have also seen some of that and you are correct. it was good. The second one, the one I am talking about, that took place in 1955 was awful. It got a poor write up in the ring.

 

Correct,

From when Bob Baker turned professional (1949) thru (1954) he was a
very quick and 'crisp' puncher.

Ages 22 thru 27.

But in 1955, the hand speed started to diminish, and he began to get slow.

 

Marciano's best fights, his biggest wins are:
-louis
-moore
-charlsx2
-walcott x2

His most impressive to me is walcott1, came back to ko a guy who was winning a fight and basically beat him for 13 rounds. Marciano ran 15 miles a day, and in a 15 round match, all you need to be able to do is not get knocked out and by round 10 you will be running circles around someone running 3-5 miles who will be dog tired. He was smart enough to conserve his energy and not move around and bounce around too much and instead just duck over. And either way he is a great fighter, we are just debating how great.

My opinion is that Marciano cannot knock out beat floyd because floyd would not tire because he ran 20 miles a day even into his 40s and was a regular at marathons on the east coast. So where marciano would expect to be fighting a tired opponent he'd not have that. Marciano may even be a better boxer, but he'd not beat floyd, it was just a bad matchup for him.

 

Floyd fought in the best era of boxing, so what if he got floored, its more impressive than fighting in the weakest era and still getting floored, busted up like rocky. Floyd beat down moore 1 year after marciano with a ko in early rounds, marciano took him to middle rounds. O yes and I am sure you'd argue mr. burns was the fittest man to put on gloves at 107 too :rofl. So patterson was not considered, yet he was the number ranked lightheavyweight at the time and number 5 heavyweight and when Marciano retired they had an eliminator tournament of the top 6 guys and Patterson came out on top. I actually agree with you that Patterson was not considered,not considered by the marciano camp who feared him. Marciano would not be able to block patterson's punches because patterson punches were too fast and patterson would come from down low with a gazelle punch and destory marciano.

Yeah Cus says in 54 I intend going for the hw title, and marciano retires in 56' because it is totally predictible that marciano would retire 2 years later.

I don't "love" floyd, but having this argument- it would be like having an argument with a tyson fan in 89 why he is going to lose to dougalas, reason would not apply to the tyson fan, or explaining why liston will lost to ali to a liston fan, ali is training really hard, he won a gold medal, his hands are faster, liston fan: Liston is invincible, he went to prison and kills people he is going to kill ali. You must love ali to think he can beat liston.

The patterson who knocked out 10 of his last 11 opponents that marciano feared was not the past prime patterson of the 70s, it was the patterson of the 50's who looked like this

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[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8HGAXkwC7A[/ame]

 

Patterson got a lot of rest during his bouts also.

He was downed 20 times in his 7 title defenses. That's a lot of snooze time.

Tough to beat a guy when you have to get down on the floor to find him.

 

:good lmao

 

Not to mention Liston was anywhere from 37 to 32 when he fought Ali. I've seen sources saying he may have even been as old 48 and was born in 1916 and that he was using a younger brother of his id for the obvious reason that boxer's lie about their age because they think people don't want to see no old man fight. If you were living in a time when people died in their 50s of heart attack and lung disease, you'd surely not want to go watch someone in their 40's fight.

I also think Liston was just not very hungry for it with Ali. I am not sure how the mafia factored in to it, I don't know if he was suppose to throw the fight and win later fights that he lost so they killed him, but I never believed that he od in Vegas. He was believed to have a fear of needles, and no one not even his wife ever saw him use.

Sonny is a once in lifetime fighter, you rarely see guys with that kind of raw power. And marciano would never be able to stand up to the punishment.

 

Meh half of those came from 1 guy, who was ranked the number 1 contender and finished his career with only 2 losses, knocked out 65% of opponents. Ingo weighed 206 Floyd weighed 180 and was routinely fighting guys who weighed in excess of 210 pounds and those were the ones putting him down. Marciano never fought anyone who weighed as much or was as big except a balding joe louis who was too slow and weak to hurt him. And marciano avoided big hitters like hell.

Patterson didn't duck any fighter, I suppose he could just avoid all the hard hitters like marciano and retire undefeated.

 

All of Marciano’s defences, apart from one, were against #1 contenders. Marciano did not duck big punchers “like hell”…You need to do more research before you can say something like that. Take Archie Moore, He knocked out more fighters than almost anyone in history. Archie was lethal -even at heavyweight! Moore KOd the #2 heavyweight then out pointed the #1 contender to get his crack at Rocky. Joe Louis was still beating rated fighters and so was rex Laynne, Kid Mathews, Don Cockell, Roland LaSarza, Charles and Walcott.

 

This is a good thread with some excellent info and responses, but I am rather confused by statements like Marciano would stop Liston throwing the jab. Marciano could not acheive this against an old slow Louis ." I just had to take them," so I dont see how he manages it with Sonny.

 

No. The 2nd fight in 1955 is up on youtube. It was a very good fight.

 

Any evidence to support this?

 

It is amazing that 31 have Rocky knocking out Liston in the poll.

Wonder how many of them would have actually bet on it had the fight happened?

 

I'd bet on it.

 

If anybody thinks that Sonny Liston would run over Rocky Marciano like a
'Sherman Tank' running over a 'Jeep'.

Look at Sonny versus 'mediocre' Bert Whitehurst,,,,,,,,

As much as Love The Big Bear,,,,,,,Sonny would have had more than a difficult time with
Rocky.

Bert Whitehurst, a 26 year-old - 6' 0" 192 lb. 'journeyman/trial-horse', with a record of 21-18-3 (11 KO's),
could get inside Sonny with relative ease, and whack the right side of Sonny's body with inside left hooks.

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