Sonny Liston vs Rocky Marciano

Can I guess?

 

If you had to guess ?

 

He brought up my 1991 Tyson vs Prime Liston thread. If he wouldn't have mentioned it, I wouldn't have mentioned Tyson.

 

It is a realistic possibility that Liston would have beaten Rocky. I can agree with that.

 

And I'd take a 220 pound version of Marciano over Sonny ...

 

Well I would kind of like to give folks the benefit of the doubt …

 

A lie. Valdez was the number 2 heavyweight.

 

He was losing to journeyman like Charlie Powell and Alonzo Johnson. Had lost 2 of this 3 previous fights and retired shortly afterward. There is no case for him being number 2.

If he was number two where were Johnson and Powell ranked who had just beat him? Why would he be ahead of Machen, Johannsson, etc?

 

So why ask? Let it be.

 

The question I asked had nothing to do with that, it was inferred by others. My question was why is Marciano so special to folks that they try so hard and twist themselves into such contortions to resist anyone who even contemplates the notion that he could lose to someone?

 

1) whether Liston hit harder than Rocky doesn't matter much. Liston hit like a trick and Rocky's skin wouldn't handle the damage according to Walcot himself. Walcott said Rocky had poor defense and cut easily, two horrible ingredients when going up against a hard hitting boxer-puncher with a tremendous reach advantage.

2) Rocky isn't going to be able to stick to Liston's left shoulder because he'd be running into a sledgehammer jab. Even if he gets past that, Liston isn't going to just let Rocky crowd him, he'll push him back and throw powerful uppercuts.

3) Liston was not an easy wide open target. Gazelle Punch actually did some punch stat numbers showing Liston was hard hit cleanly and parried many blows or partially blocked them. As for Rocky going to the body, good luck getting past an 84' reach consistently.

4) If Liston's jab is powerful enough to send Rocky backwards and out of range for the right, that isn't necessarily a bad thing. It would force Rocky to reset and get frustrated anytime he tried to get inside making it a tedious, painful battle for control of range.

 

This is precisely what happened. Powell and Alonzo whupped Valdes from the ratings then both lost their next fights. I even posted the ratings showing that Alex miteff and Roy Harris had replaced Powell and Alonzo in the ratings by the time Liston fought Valdes. Nino was, as we know, unrated for Liston.

 

I'm done debating you. I've had it with the dishonesty. Please don't engage with me in the future. Thank you.

 

Rocky was hard to hit with long punches. That was the mistake better fighters always made with him. Marciano just came in far too low for long punches to be that beneficial. He always made it to the other guys shoulder. He got there like a wrestler makes a takedown.

 

It’s not dishonesty. It’s another opinion.