Rocky Marciano vs. Sonny Liston

Well addressed points, but Machen tried desperately to get Ingo to live up to their return fight agreement ,to no avail ,so it isn't surprising he went a bit lacksadaisical after wards,imo.

 

Machen/Ingo II would have been interesting, can't say for sure how it would have turned out. There's a chance Machen could have either turned it around or ended up in bad shape. He didn't do too well agianst Folley in his next high profile match, so maybe its for the best the Ingo match didn't happen. And I can understand Ingo wanting to cash in against Patterson as soon as possible.

 

assessing marciano simply as a small swarmer, a slow swarmer at that, is missing the point and wrong.
Catorogising is a generalisation that cannot apply to the unique exceptions of the rule. All "one type of fighter always lose to another type of fighter" cliches are exactly the kind of bull**** that should only be excused for those less experienced historians. The customer is not always right. It is a cliche. A generalisation. Marciano hit hard with both hands and Liston was not faster, nor was he hard to hit. These are fair observations not generalisation.

Addressing the resumes of both men cannot be based only on assumptions. Some of it has to be factual. Liston was knocked out. Liston did not win tough fights at elite level an Liston did lose to smaller men than Marciano. Liston did not beat Johansson, we can only guess he could. This is fair observation not generalisation.

 

If you asked anyone to assess Marciano's style and disregard who he was I would bet they would say he was a small swarmer and slow afoot. I have never suggestted that all small swarmers must lose to bigger heavy punchers.
What I have said is that if Liston could pick one style to fight Marciano's would closely resemble it.
Liston was faster with his hands than Marciano , hit hard with both hands too , and also had a killer left jab, he was also better defensively, which made him harder to hit, being prepared to back pedal and regroup when necessary.

Liston was stopped when he was past his prime, Marciano retired in his, how he would cope with younger, stronger, bigger men ,when he was into his late 30's we don't know.
I'm neither a bullshitter ,nor a historian of any description, and if you are going to get out of your pram because I politely disagree with you, we can terminate this now.

 

How about Liston about 15" in reach on him to maximize his killer jab and fought far more big punchers ... ? Small details I know but still ...

 

Liston had a wonderful jab. A real potent step in jab. Superb against upright, conventional boxers stranded at range. There is not much evidence that it was the kind of jab that was effective against Awkward crouching crowding opponents trained by Charlie Goldman.

Remember Joe Louis against charlie Goldman trained Atrturo Godoy?

 

The relevance of Listons speed of punch and power should be measured only against the type of fighters he fought in real life. He had a hex over Floyd who was never able to perform against Sonny, the other great fighter he fought was albeit one of the best of all time but a young upstart at the time. Now that is not a lot to go on. And that is unfortunate.

Take away those that Sonny met that were not intimidated by Sonnys bad boy reputation and it leaves not that many unique wins. Machen? Besmanoff? WHitehurst? king? A tad unfair perhaps but an observation rather than generalisation. we need to scrutinize the evidence in competative Liston fights and compare them to competative marciano fights.

How competative were Patterson and Harris? Were they intimidated? If they were not how come they did not do so well as machen Whitehurst besmanof king and co?

 

I've heard this narrative before but I don't really buy it. If Layne was ruined by Marciano and Charles in '51 it means that he was already ruined when he beat Charles in '52 (I realise the decision over Charles was disputed, but a poll of the ringside press put the consensus at a 4-3-3 win for Charles - too close to be a blatant robbery). Likewise, it means that Roland LaStarza earned his title shot with a split decision win against a ruined fighter.

As for Valdes, I don't think there's any evidence that his eye injury was suffered against Satterfield. When it was discovered in 1960, Valdes himself said that he'd had it for 10 years.

 

Seems to me Patterson fought out of a crouch …

I do .. both fights.

 

Ingo had power and ability but lacked courage.

 

-Here's the round by round:

[url]http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=888&dat=19520809&id=ropaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=IU8DAAAAIBAJ&pg=4979,3324589[/url]

-At this rate we seem to be making a case for Layne actually being better than we thought. Charles may not have been up to par, but it does mention Layne having improvements and fighting hard, also appears to be at his regular fighting weight.


-LaStarza certainly took advantage of the vulnerable Layne's high ranking after Charles II to set up his desired rematch against Marciano. As for the match being close, Layne was still a rough customer, especially against someone who probably lacked big time power. Articles said Layne wrestled LaStarza around early but tired, and took a beating in the late rounds. LaStarza also traded wins with Rocky Jones and Bucceroni, he was good fighter and all, looked really great against Marciano, but seemed rather erratic. I tihnk he could only get up for Maricnao, and had no interest mixing it up with the other contenders. He called out Rocky for the longest time yet didn't bother making a move until Layne jumped up the rankings.

-It looks like the true vanishing point for Layne was after the third Charles fight, where he took another bad beating. He was thrown in against Walls just a few months later, and also appeared to be ill with the flu, insisting on a postponement. He lost 16 lbs in between the two Walls matches, not far apart. Interesting stuff, it seems Layne went hot/cold after the first Charles fight, and finally hit the wall after the third one.

- He claimed as much but I don't know. Valdez certainly never returned to form after Satterfield. It was one of the nastier eye injuries I've seen, up there with Vargas/Mosley. In addition, he just took a nasty beating from one of the harder hitters in history. Anyway a fading Valdez in his mid 30s was still beating up lower tier top 10 guys in the late 50s, so he certainly had more longetivity than you were giving him credit for.

 

I bet Godoy remembered the second one.

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There is zero evidence that Marciano could handle a 200lbs plus hevayweight with an 84" jab who could match him for power,and was , in his prime.

I think you are in denial.

 

Patterson fought behind a peekaboo guard, his stance was more square on and he dipped rather than crouched. Marciano fought behind his shoulder and elbow guard, almost completely side on. There is no comparison.

More importantly Floyd was also totaly frozen and psyched out against Liston. Both times.

 

Liston's psych job won't work on Marciano...he was too tough mentally...