The Quality of Marciano's Opponents

Here are the NBA ratings for April 26, 1950, their last ratings before the Savold-Woodcock fight:

Champion--Ezzard Charles
1--Jersey Joe Walcott
2--Lee Oma
3--Lee Savold
4--Bruce Woodcock
5--John Holman
6--Kid Riviera
7--Joe Baksi
8--Pat Valentino
9--Rocky Marciano
10-Omelio Agramonte

 

Jack Gardner FFS want to tell us who he beat?

 

The pinnacle of Baker's career was still ahead. The weakness of your argument is we don't know if Baker could have beaten Moore, Satterfield, or Henry on his best day. He might have been losing simply because he was meeting better opponents than he did in the early 1950's prior to the Henry fight, or in the two years after the Moore fight. In other words, Baker could beat a lot of guys but not the top guys and his rise later to the #1 contender slot was due to better matchmaking by his management.

 

You dont accept that fighters can have highs and lows in their careers,and consequently differing gravitas can logically be applied to their results at different times.

 

"All common opponents ranked Williams power over Liston for one"

So Wayne Bethea, who was stopped in one by Liston but went the distance with Williams, and according to the UPI (off boxrec) had 7 teeth knocked out by Liston, said Williams hit harder?

Two questions--When did Bethea say this? Could you give us a source?

And if Bethea did say this, how much value is it? Liston was the one who stopped him in one, and the Liston-Williams fights sure don't back up the Cleve hit harder than Sonny thesis.

"Moore and Walcott . . . were no where near as powerful as Williams, Valdes, or DeJohn."

Fine, but no where on film do any of these men throw as effective a punch as Walcott did when he caught Charles, or Moore when he KO'd Davidson.

Effective power is more complex than just being bigger. I think issues such as torque and being at the correct distance when you hit a guy have a lot of to do on how hard the punch is.

 

No.

Unless the loser is green or clearly past it, I am going to give the guy who wins full credit. One fighter could be on a winning streak and still have an off night. Another might have lost a couple but was fighting better men and fights at the top of his game.

To the extent possible, I don't want to intrude my opinion onto the record.

Let's say Moore had fought Baker in the summer of 1953 when he was rated 8th, and Satterfield fought him in early 1954. To me this would not make any difference in how I rate either man's victory. Why should it?

 

Maybe not as good as people imagine given we have plenty of instances of Marciano's contemporaries whipping fighters of the following eras
like Satterfield beating Williams
Johnson beating Machen
Baker beating Chuvalo

 

That doesn't in any way contradict what I said.

I was making the point that when Baker fought Moore he didn't deserve a top 10 rating because he wasn't performing well enough. If you believe that he never improved on those performances, and only subsequently climbed the ratings through careful matchmaking, I'm not going to argue. True or not, it doesn't change the fact that Moore's win was not against the world class heavyweight his fans (and more to the point Marciano's fans) would like to believe.

 

A question. Did Max Schmeling ever KO a heavyweight champion?

With Baker, do you think before or after he lost to Moore he ever deserved a top ten rating?

Baker ended 1954 rated the #4 contender. It makes no sense to me to consider him nothing in the spring.

 

I don't know if Bethea said that,but Liston said," Williams hits as hard as me ,but can't take it as well".
How much value is there in Walcott saying Marciano hit harder with one punch than Louis?
Layne said Louis hit him harder than Marciano,and that was only an exhibition!

 

Of course they hit harder..,but they weren’t dangerous to half way decent competition

 

Sparring partners have also said Marciano hit harder than Louis.

 

These stats were taken from compubox of most of his filmed fights (believe they used 9 fights). I’d also assume most of his filmed fights used were against top tier opposition like Charles Walcott Moore and Louis. Marciano isn’t on film fighting low tier opponents all ranked at the time I believe except maybe Savold and that’s debated. That being said everyone fights less then stellar completion time to time. Louis had his bum of the month club. Ali was accused of the same (although I wouldn’t agree there). Literally hand pick any fighter and I will show u several Don Cs on there. The only thing I’ll say that may have helped Marciano here is he didn’t fight long past prime and got out before his numbers declined. That helps I’m sure. But does it help him be that far better then the average HW better then top tier HWs? I’d say no

Book is called Boxing by the numbers (compubox of all of Ali’s fights) in the back of said book they have interesting totals but no details of fighter Marciano Wlad Holmes Liston Foreman Frazier Tyson Dempsey Louis

 

I'm not disputing it ,though I don't know what sparring partners they ever had in common,could you name one?

 

I'm sorry but I find such information worse than useless.