Sonny Liston vs Rocky Marciano

I have indeed. Here it is again.

https://boxrec.com/wiki/index.php/National_Boxing_Association

 

I think there are actually two questions at work here.

First question, whether Marciano faced the best / most dangerous fighter. By custom, we use Ring Magazine for that, and answer, "No."

Second question, whether Rocky ducked Valdes. It doesn't sound nuts for Rocky to choose the opponent picked by the body that sanctioned his fights.

Though that opens up an interesting can of worms. Are we sure that all the other contenders Marciano faced were also ranked as the "logical contender" by the same body...?

 

Valdes kind of did miss his go. Nino was due a shot around the second Charles fight..but they did that one again when it should have been Nino. Then Moore beat Nino around the time Rocky beat Cockell.

 

I don't think Marciano would duck anyone,I think he would be affronted if somebody even suggested it.I do not think that is the case for his manager Al Weill.

 

Fair enough.

In that case, I would tweak the issue slightly to whether his management was ducking Valdes. I think the same reasoning would apply.

 

Its bizarre to me the people here laughing at Choklab for being the only person quoting the actual official ratings. As if what they want to believe or what a magazine that had ZERO official standing somehow trumped an organization that had the power to sanction fights, strip fighters, demand title defenses, etc. You can "take the Ring ratings" all you want but thats no different than saying "I'll just go ahead and ignore the official ratings and defer to whatever my flavor of the month is" in short, its living in fantasy land. The NBA had the backing of the vast majority of state athletic commissions and international sanctioning bodies. The Ring was nothing more than a magazine whose chief interest was in selling more magazines. Its ratings had no legitimacy and frankly those ratings and the articles found in Ring and cover stories were often dictated by where they wanted to sell subscriptions. People **** a brick when Oscar bought the magazine, saying "It will influence the magazine in one promoters favor" But this ignored the fact that for the first 50 years of its existence Ring was basically a mouthpiece for the NYSAC in general and MSG in particular. Its offices were in MSG and the magazine itself was started with funding and office space provided by Tex Rickard, a promoter just like Oscar. In fact Rickard wrote the first ratings Ring ever published and they werent exactly without his personal bias.

 

Yeah the NBA/WBA is definitely an unimpeachable source.

 

Well the first fight was such a classic, people wanted to see it again. Think of it like Fury Wilder of the day.

 

Meanwhile the man who had beaten Charles and taken his number1 spot got left on the sidelines whilst Charles got 2 bites of the cherry.

 

Thank goodness for common sense.

 

The man who beat Charles (Nino) wound up being eclipsed by charles right up until Marciano beat Charles. Until nino beat Huricane Jackson his 1953 win over Charles looked like a fluke because Nino wouldn’t rematch Charles. Meanwhile Ezzard flattens satterfield and Wallace. He’d already held wins over Moore and Gilliam after both beat Valdes and he’d beaten Layne, Brion and Harrison as well.

All Nino did until he beat Jackson was beat a couple of Europeans in Europe other than totally suck against James J Parker in Madison square garden and tread water against nondescript nonentities.

 

Who made the NBA official?
Which department of the government conferred that status on them?

 

Charles had lost 2 of his last 4 fights when he got his first title shot.
Now explain why Valdes needed to rematch Charles to earn his title shot? It's not as though it was a controversial split decision, it was a unanimous win for Valdes. Valdes went 9 straight after beating Charles . Among others Valdes beat Sys,Neuhaus,and Jackson ,both Neuhaus and Jackson were top ten Ring rated

 

Come to think of it, the government didn't confer the title of champion on anybody, either.

It just sort of happens by custom. Why was Jack Johnson champion? Because he beat the guy who beat the guy who...

 

They were better and more accurate than the Rings back then. Pretending that NBA ratings in the 1950s when it was run by a governing body are the same as the WBA ratings of the 1990s when it was run by a banana republic is obtuse and we both know your argument there is based on wanting to be right not on the actual facts. Ill take the NBA ratings any day over a magazine that had no officials status and didnt dictate who got title shots. You can cry about this person or that person not being rated #1 and say they deserved a title shot but at the end of the day the only ratings a fighter was beholden to were the NBA ratings and back then the NBA was at least trying to bring some semblance of order to the sport.

And this is all academic because your assertion that Valdes was #1 from the time he beat Charles until he lost to Moore is incorrect even by the Ring Ratings. Weve spoken before about your tendency to be a lazy armchair expert and just use whatever data you can quickly find on the internet to support your argument and here you are doing it again, as before, with the end of the year Ring ratings found in Boxrec. Valdes didnt get the #1 spot by beating Charles. In fact according to Ring's unofficial ratings Valdes didnt get higher than #4 by beating Charles and Charles only dipped from #1 to #2. The was reflected two months after Charles lost to Valdes in their October issue. LaStarza was elevated to #1 by Charles loss. Valdes was first rated #1 by Ring in Feb 1954 and only stayed there three months as you can see. So defer to the Ring all you want but even they dont agree with you. When Marciano defended against LaStarza and Charles x2 he was defending against his #1 contender as per your selected source:

Aug 1953

1. Ezz Valdes unrated

sept 1953

1. Ezz Valdes unrated

Oct 1953

1. Lastarza
2. Charles
3. Bucceroni
4. Valdez Valdez is fighter of the month for beating Charles

Nov 1953

1. LaStarza
2. Bucceroni
3. Charles
4. Valdez

Dec 1953

1. Lastarza
2. Charles
3. Valdes

Jan 1954

1. Lastarza
2. Valdes
3. Charles

Feb 1954

1. Valdes
2. Charles
3. LaStarza

Mar 1954

1. Valdes
2. Charles fighter of the month
3. Bucceroni

April 1954

1. Valdes
2. Charles
3. Bucceroni

May 1954

1. Charles
2. Valdes
3. Bucceroni

June 1954

1. Charles
2. Valdes
3. Jackson

July 1954

1. Charles
2. Valdes
3. Cockell

Aug 1954

1. Charles
2. Valdes
3. Cockell

Sept 1954

1. Charles
2. Valdes
3. Cockell

The NBA didnt rank Valdes #1 until October 1954 after Charles had lost to Marciano in the rematch. Wanna know when the Ring put Valdes back in the #1 spot? Dec 1954 which was their magazine covering the month of October 1954. So they rated him the same month as the NBA.