Sonny Liston vs Rocky Marciano

I agree with this. Sonny was good at multiple range. an excellent fighter. He can fight close. He can fight long. And he is very very strong. I’m simply saying Marciano fooled a lot of good fighters because, until they fought him, it looked like they could operate at multiple range against him. Turned out he forced all of them to fight the wrong fight.

That’s your opinion to think so. Nothing “would” about it.

 

>checks this website for the first time in about half a year
>this is the top thread with over 400 replies

war, war never changes.

 

That's an entirely separate discussion. I wasn't claiming to know for sure how good a bulked up Ali or Patterson were, nor was I saying we shouldn't take boxers as they were in H2H discussios. I was just pointing out that even in today's era of body builders and behemoths over 230+, you still have smaller classic sized heavies who can comfortably move up and down in weigh as needed and even win titles.

I think for some boxers today, they simply lack the discipline to get in shape and say "screw it" because they know they can take the supplements to have the cardio to go 12 rounds while still being fat. Chimp see, chimp do. Once a lot of people got lazy, everyone got lazy. And the current rules favor the bigger guy on average.

 

There would be no wrong fight for Liston. Whether he boxes at long range or slugs at close range, he'll have many advantages over Rocky.

 

Well, that's the thing. We don't have "classic sized" heavies, really. We have guys who might naturally be classic sized, but bulk up into something larger than that. The people actually stepping in the ring are quite a bit bigger than prime Frazier, Quarry, or Ellis.

I hesitate to say that the heavyweights today are simply lazy. The guys below heavyweight certainly aren't! Those guys are lean and muscular to a degree that would be unusual in the 1950s. When in doubt, I tend to assume the professionals know what they're doing, rather than saying the heavies are a lazy exception to the rule. If they choose to come in at weight X, it's probably because they reasonably believe they'll be better at that weight.

(Except Fury, who has publicly admitted to poor self control and addiction issues, and -- I'm sorry, but I can't call it any other way -- Andy Ruiz.)

 

Classic sized is from Louis to Tyson. Roughly 205-215+. The vast majority of heavies in the lineal championship have been that size. No bulking involved, they just naturally fell within that range because they weren't lifting weights or taking a bunch of supplement (that we know of). That's 50+ years of consistency until the 90's when things started to drastically shift. Even before Louis you had champions such as Jefferies and Johnson who frequently weighed within that range.

I only call some of them lazy because of their physique. An athlete in his prime shouldn't have a triple chin, flabs, saggy chest, etc.

 

Jeffries and Johnson were that weight, but they were large by the standards of their eras. The #2 guy Johnson beat for the championship was a supermiddleweight (generously). Jeffries also beat a supermiddle. Dempsey was under 200. Ditto Tunney, Sharkey, Marciano, Patterson, Sharkey, Sullivan, etc. I think if you averaged out the top 10, you'd find a slow creep upward.

Now, modern training has accelerated and intensified that process. Totally agree. And as a result, fighters are even bigger now than they would have been on the earlier trend line.

If a fighter is too small because he fails to use modern training, though, the fact remains that he's too small.

 

Tunney was a 1 off champion who barely stuck around similar to Spinx. Sullivan has multiple fights where he weighs over 200. Patterson, Dempsey, and Rocky were considered small even for their own eras.

The champion is by definition the most successful guy of his era. We were discussing what was considered classic sized and what was considered the most ideal for different eras. There are more examples proving my point amongst champions than exceptions for that weight range.

Sullivan, Jeff, Johnson, Louis, Liston, Frazier, Ali, Foreman, Holmes, Tyson (10)

Vs

Dempsey, Patterson, Tunney, Marciano, Sharky (5).

As I said, the exceptions were considered small even back then and critics wrote off some of them with low expectations. 205-215+ give or take is classic sized for nearly a century for champions. Obviously the size of the average contender goes up slightly over time, but it wasn't drastic until the 90's.

 

Sullivan was at his best under 200. Tyson hovered around 220. Nor are the guys I mentioned the only examples; they were merely illustrative.

We can spend all day taking picked examples of individual performances, but we both agree there is a trend line upward even before modern training. If we'd had this argument in 1960, I doubt we'd draw the line for "classic sized" heavies at 200.

But as I said: now we have modern training. It's here to stay. Has been since Spinks. Size increases have accelerated since then. It doesn't matter whether 200 pounds would be enough to compete at any point between 1880 and 1965, since we aren't living in 1965. We are living in 2023, when heavyweights are larger than "classic" heavies of whatever weight. Whether that's 190, or 200, or your new standard of "205-215+, give or take" in the above post. Only the last one is close, but only because it's a fuzzy and imprecise cutoff compared to the other figures. It has enough wiggle room to include fighters well below the size limits in the Ring top 10 (205), but also includes the "smallest" ones (Wilder at his lightest).

 

I think I made the connection clear. And I only brought up Tyson because someone mentioned my Tyson vs Liston thread that I made years ago.

 

I don't think it's a "religion" to have a genuine opinion that Rocky would be competitive with Liston, even if he lost. Why is anything other than "Liston easily slaughters Rocky" a religion? Ali said it himself that he thought that Rocky on his best day would be a tough fight for him. Did Ali have a "religion"?

If my opinion is "Roy Jones would massacre Jim Jefferies" (which is my real opinion) is that also a religion?

 

I know we're in 2023. My point that men over 200 within that range seem to be a sort of sweet spot for the division still stands. You didn't really debunk anything. Even in the classic era, weighing 186 like Rocky wasn't considered ideal. That was the original conversation we were having. You had asked why having a weight advantage matters less over 200. And I said there's many variables to consider, and exceptions, but generally speaking if a guy is elite skilled and in shape he can compete in most eras at that range.

 

Nobody said that. Obviously saying Rocky beating Liston doesn't make someone a religious fanatic. Favoring Rocky to win in virtually every h2h discussion borders on fanaticism however. Especially when the arguments boil down to "Rocky will find a way" and rely heavily on intangibles such a as "heart" and "toughness" while downplaying very significant factors such as weight, reach, style, etc. I'm not saying you do that, but many Rocky fans on the forum do.

 

You can argue Sullivan was 215 at his peak condition, which was the Kilrain fight. Muldoon trained him insanely for that fight

 

Sullivan's prime might've been before, but I still argue that the Kilrain fight was probably his best physique wise. Sullivan was likely never in that good of shape in his life before