Where do you honestly rate Rocky Marciano against other heavyweight champions?

When I look at these mythical match-ups I do not transport the older fighter to the present, i do the reverse . . . how would the current fighter deal with the conditions of days gone bye? I think if you look at it from that perspective, people will realize how special fighters were back then.

 

Marciano does not belong in modern HW division. You can only rate him on what he did in his era. He had somewhat short reign compared to other champs - only 6 defenses.

 

You do know Ali's backers got Rocky as a sprring partner? And it was said Merciano beat Ali up...So I'd rank him high on any list...

 

:huh With all due respect to whom? I was addressing someone else's argument with what I found an interesting comparison with a TOTT. Not agreeing with it. That isn't to say anything about them beating Marciano or taking his punches or whether or not Marciano could make that weigh-in or if he should be judged as a heavyweight, historically. I judge him as a heavyweight and don't even give any thought to these guys standing up to him. That wasn't my point.

That said, just to follow that line, Bute and most of the big-name super middles today are taller with a longer wingspan than Marciano. And they're often weighing-in on fight night very close to Marciano's fighting weights. Think about that for a second. The weigh-ins changing have completely distorted fans' perception of the reality of how large fighters actually are now, compared to past fighters in much "higher weights", I'd say.

I'm only making a point about what little can sometimes separate guys from 168-200+, in terms of weight. Smaller heavies (as Marciano was) and as a guy like Adamek currently is, are often not far off of guys 2 weight classes down from them when it comes to their actual fight-night weigh-ins. And people don't realize because they're looking at the weight class they're fighting in, instead of the actual weight they come into the ring as.

This is why there used to be no cruiserweight or super middleweight divisions and guys like Floyd Patterson were going from 175 to heavyweight and nobody was going bat**** over it. Light heavies were mingling with heavies on the regular. Tunney, Schmeling, Charles, Patterson, all to the HW title, successfully, as well as Maxim, Harold Johnson, Archie Moore, they were all doing it and having some success. But it wasn't the same as it would be now. You can't deny that. This is why Archie Moore weighed inside a pound of Marciano when they fought and he was going back and forth from light heavy to heavy, and why Bute and Andrade are so close in weight to Marciano. It's not an optical illusion, man. Because not that much separates the smaller, pre-cruiserweight heavies from from our full-fledged, current super middleweights. :conf

That's not a statement on what chance they'd have with anyone or whether or not the past heavies could make the weight today, if they were to try, as it's so different for everyone, but let's look at the reality of their actual sizes. And the fact that many of these guys are on SNV-knows what kind of diuretics they aren't testing for/able to find. For crying out loud, look at Chavez Junior, coming in at 180 for a 160 fight, not far off of Marciano's fighting weight himself.

 

It's just a rumor though, it was sparring and it happened during Ali's camp leading up to his comeback fight after a 3 year layoff..

 

Thats Bubby speak with a hidden message:deal

 

what he said.