Thoughts on Marciano's resume?

Sarcasm- surely?

 

i think our friend here has spent too much time in amongst sub 25 year olds who DKSAB and probably just say that Ali would get manhandled by AJ or something

 

No sarcasm but raw reality. its enough to read around the comments of the "Millenials" (those born around the 2000) on Ali and Marciano to understand what I was referring with that reply. Who understands a little bit of boxing (as many here, fortunately) ranks them high where its right they have to stay.

 

Valdes had not been defeated by Moore when he was first the number one contender ,[he was at the end of 53&54] which he achieved by beating Charles who got the title shot? Charles.

 

I think Rocky lacks a bit of the gray area. A lot of tomato cans is a rightful criticism but on the same hand people under rate like crazy contenders like Rex Layne, Lastarza, Matthews, and Cockell whom were all prime. Opting to pick on the better older guys he beat in Walcott, Louis, Moore, and Charles.

 

A relatively small proportion of Bivins fights were contested at LHW. He started as a MW and from the time he grew into a LHW, most of his fights were contested at HW.

If we consider up to 180lbs as slightly over the weight, non title LHW contests, he only fought their 15 times.

What a 15 fights though. He has the least number of fights contested in a weight division of any of the fighters I rank top 10 in that weight division (original 8 only) all time.

He went 14-1, the sole loss to the GOAT at LHW, Ezzard Charles. He also beat Charles at this weight, as well as Lloyd Marshall, Joey Maxim, Gus Lesnevich, Anton Christorfoidis, Teddy Yarosz, Billy Soose, Nate Bolden and Curtis Shepherd.

I doubt anyone with a <90% win percentage and a minimum of 15 fights has as a quality to quantity win ratio as impressive is that, in any weight division in the history of all of boxing.

 

This is an affectation of the modern era looking backward. Valdez was a guy who lost twice to LHW Moore, and Baker was never #1 contender. These are not guys that people of that era were clamoring to see, and a fighter's greatness is judged by what he does in his era.

 

I don’t know what to say. The average person who isn’t a fan of any boxing besides the movies sees Ali as this unstoppable God of war. Whenever I hear about him from the average they clamour on about how matrix like he is- having seen no film of him of course expect that one highlight where he is on the ropes lol. He actually gets brought up in insults a lot in my area- “look at this wannabe Muhammad Ali” (Ali can be replaced with Tyson, Connor McGregor or Rocky Balboa lol)

 

“You’re not strong how did you beat me?”

 

He arrived at a low point in the division's history, after a world wide conflict disrupted the talent flow, where guys were being rewarded with the heavyweight title for merely hanging on and surviving in their careers. Wildly shopworn ex-greats and lightheavies aspiring above their God-given gifts. He fought a very narrow band of opponent styles and abilities when he finally got to the top ranks. And he got out while the getting was good.

 

Mathews and Cockell weren't much imo.
The fact that Cockell got a number 2 ranking indicates the lack of depth in the division in the mid 50's.

 

It is unequivocally a great resume.

Sure you could argue that he fought in a weak era, but weak eras are ten a penny, and still nobody has ever been able to match this resume.

That having been said, it is by no means a simple resume, in terms of whether it is strong or weak.

Marciano was initially thrown to the wolves, and over matched in his first few professional fights.

When he beat the odds and won these fights, his management saw the error of their calculation, and realized that they might have a going concern on their hands.

They rolled his level of opposition right back, and started padding his record.

Therefore it is not entirely correct to say that Marciano was a protected fighter, nor to say that he was not.

As champion he was absolutely scrupulous in defending against the most qualified challengers, with only one of his title challengers not being the current Ring Magazine #1 contender.

Even if you don't think the era was all that, it is hard to fault his conduct as champion.

 

Rocky Marciano was exciting to watch and had an awesome record. His opposition wasn’t the strongest in boxing history but it wasn’t the weakest. In any event he beat the best available opponents around. Can’t expect any more than that.

 

I think the depth was fine but sometimes the wrong guy gets put ahead. We’re better fighters like Hurricane, Baker, Satterfield, Moore, Johnson whom would have been better choices…in hindsight

 

You realize the person you're replying to, criticizes Ali for losing to a "club fighter" as he puts it, in Ken Norton right?