The Quality of Marciano's Opponents

If Rocky hadn't fought Moore and instead fought Valdez, 2 things would happen. First, even though Valdez was a 25 year old modern sized heavyweight, he would be called a bum who couldn't fight (if Rocky beat him). Then, Rocky would be accused of ducking Moore.

 

I agree that Marciano came along at a perfect time for a guy to go undefeated. The previous generation was on Geritol, there really wasn’t a contemporary generation of note for Rocky and the next generation hadn’t arrived yet. WWII being the biggest reason for this.

BUT, I’d say the Archie Moore whom Rocky fought is on par with or better than anyone Joe Louis defended against — you can argue Schmeling but he’s regarded so mostly because he had beaten Joe and not on his resume as a whole at the time of their second fight.

Joe, of course, has the better resume in comparison to Rocky because he completely cleaned out the division on the way to the title (apart from needing to clean up that little mess with Max … the German one).

But the Archie that Rocky fought was on par really with most top contenders (or better) from Louis’ time up until Sonny Liston IMO.

 

This is true. The Moore that Rocky beat is definitely on par with much of Louis title opposition. I think that 1955 Moore beats 1939 Tony Galento

 

You're not missing much I put him on block when he said Joe Frazier had a glass jaw. After reading that I refused to read anything more he wrote.

 

First of all, I don't know where I would place Holmes for my ATG ratings. My top 10 shifts a lot and I may or may not have Rocky above Holmes honestly. I rate Holmes higher when it comes to h2h though, which is just sports fantasy talk. Rocky arguably has the better overall career.

2nd, taking a shot at Norton for how he won his belt is pretty hilarious given that the two guys who kept playing hot potato with the belt (ancient Ali and Mediocre Spinx) refused to fight Norton and wanted nothing to do with him. Ali even called Foreman and asked him to get rid of Norton for him! Spinx proved to be a 1-hit wonder and his career faded into nothingness shortly after Ali got the title back, and Norton was rightfully elevated after beating the 2nd best guy in the division in Jimmy Young. Holmes beat Norton in one of the 10 best fights in HW history, I've watched it 3x. They both certainly displayed more skill, athleticism, and ability than Rocky did trudging along eating 3-4 punches to land one of his own against Walcott. And let's not forgot: Walcott had only become champion after beating an old and shopworn light heavyweight Charles after like what, his 4th attempt?

You could argue Cooney, Witherspoon, or Mercer were all better wins than the Shavers fights. Cooney was a young vicious KO king. Witherspoon would go on to win the title 2x. Mercer was a gold medalist, would also go on to win a belt, and significantly younger, bigger, and stronger yet got outclassed. In fact, all these opponents were young, skilled, and undefeated. You can add Carl Williams to the list. How many young, skilled, undefeated fighters did Rocky face again? Oh that's right.

To quote Holmes: "I was an old man fighting young men, he was a young man fighting old men".

The only valid points you can bring up to place Rocky above Holmes are that Rocky was undefeated and that he beat more HOF quality fighters. That's it. When you look at the stats, the age/condition of many of Holmes opponents, he has several advantages.

I noticed you didn't address a single goddamn thing I brought up for why people criticize Rocky's record and instead chose to take a snipe at Holmes.

 

Max Schmeling
Billy Conn
Joe Walcott
Bob Pastor

All these guys were better than 41 y.o Moore, and the oldest of the group was 9 years his junior when he fought Louis.
Moore is on par with John Henry Lewis.

 

He's live against everyone in Louis's era except Louis himself.

By 1955, Moore was a HW most of the time. With the exception of his LH title defenses he typically weighed in at 180, and weighed as high at 196 for the second Nino Valdes fight.

Marciano did indeed have the good fortune of taking over the throne at an opportune time. But he also had the good fortune to face some legitimately great fighters at points when they clearly had something to offer. Past prime or no, Moore, Charles, Walcott and Louis are probably a better quartet of wins than just about any heavyweight champion before; or just about anyone since.

 

Marciano was the right guy at the right time in a WW2 depleted division.

Out of his 49 wins he has maybe ten with a pulse in them and the top guys he faced out of the 9 or 10 had 100000000 miles on the clock, were stone old and balding..................half of his signature wins never fought again after they faced him.

What keeps him alive here is the 49-0, thats it. He could never ever duplicate his reign in later decades with full size prime skilled Heavies as his opponents, he aint getting by Liston, Ali, Foreman, Holmes Tyson etc and would pick up a loss vs Contenders, a 5'10 190 pound come forward T Rex arm Bleeder with poor balance and practically no jab swinging for the fences aint gonna cut it being super tough and conditioned.

If we stick to the 49-0 FMJ is light years ahead in technique, opposition and dominance over a far longer period than Marciano., it is not even close.

 

Moore at 41 was a whole hell of a lot better than a virtually blind Lewis. Would pick him every day of the week to beat Pastor and I could see him tracking down Conn, too.

 

There clearly should be an asterisk next to Marciano's name in this list of heavyweight champions.

 

So not only did you fail to address my original post, you failed to address anything I wrote in response.

Weak sauce.

For such a big Rocky supporter, you're quite the coward.