Who had better competition: Wlad or Rocky Marciano

Walcott was the champion.

Moore would fight Floyd Patterson for the vacant HW title after Marciano retired.

I think it's silly to completely dismiss them. On their own, each of those 5 wins I listed are better than probably all but perhaps a handful of Wladimir's wins.

I didn't include Joe Louis because he was a corpse of himself. Perhaps Ezzard was too, but dismissing all of those plus Walcott X2 and Moore is just convenient for peoples' arguments.

 

You're right, except for Joe Louis. If you look at newspaper articles of that period, you'll see that Marciano was the underdog against Joe Louis, who was on an 8-fight winning streak against highly-ranked contenders. Look at videos of him training for the fight, and you'll see that Louis was not shot. Past his prime, yes. But still a very good fighter.

And it should be mentioned that Archie Moore was the world's reigning Light Heavyweight champion when he fought Marciano. It's like fighting Bernard Hopkins today. But Marciano and Moore were the same weight on fight night.

 

This is the best boxing video ever made:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sncQC8_5uEM

 

Wlad is a big robot, whereas Ezzard is a boxing master:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E2BEE8Ce70

 

atsch

 

Sorry to break it to you guys but athletes get better, not worse. Wlad is too big too strong and too technical for anyone of this or that era.

 

You definitely can't write off Marciano's wins over the HOF'ers.

Walcott was 37 but he also seemed to hold on to his fighting years very well. He was something of a late bloomer, and all you really have to do is watch the fight. He fought extremely well against Marciano.

Ez in the first fight seemed to find a new lease on life too. He was universally praised after his performance against Rocky because he put up a really spirited and gutsy effort. Everyone expected him to play it safe and box on the defensive, but he came to fight.

Moore was definitely old but some of his best work came after the Marciano fight, ironically.

Put it this way: all were still very relevant as fighters and not corpses, not by a long shot.

 

As an overall wlad, but relative to era and size Marciano though past prime Moore, Charles, Louis and Walcott are all hall of famers and far more skilled than wlads comp..

 

Walcott was at his best going into the Marciano fight.

Rocky has Hall of famers and ATGs on his record. Thats better than having none. Wald has NONE.

 

And that explains why Wlad isn't thought of as highly by the vast majority of boxing experts. The man isn't a killer in the vein of great fighters throughout history. More to being a great fighter, then being tall and having muscles.

On another note....I imagine this is the 1st of many Klitschko posts today. Elroy/Alts, just never give up...Hilarious...

 

Marciano produced great fights never to be forgotten and will always be ranked above Wlad on the ATG list

Top ten greatest punchers of all time.

Producded the greatest knockout of all time.

Fought Ring mags fight of the year 3 times-52, 53 ,54

Was
Ring mags 3 time fighter of the year- 53, 54, 55

His opponents were Ring fighters of the year and fought fights of the year.

Retired Undefeated

Awards for Wald- ZERO.

 

I'm a huge Marciano fan. If you want to argue that Rocky's got the better names at the top end of his resume, go right ahead. I won't argue that.

That said, resumes aren't just about the best names on it. Wlad's 2nd title reign has lasted longer than Marciano's entire career, of which Rocky was only fighting ranked fighters for the last 5 years or so of it. He didn't only fight more Hall of Famers than Wlad, he also fought more fighters that didn't have a winning record despite having a significantly shorter career and fewer fights. Rocky never fought southpaws.

Longevity gives Wlad such a depth edge that he gets my vote here.

 

Some numbers in case people are interested. I won't even take size into account to keep it purely about the records.

Records against fighters who were ever Ring top 10 rated:

Rocky Marciano: 16-0 (14 knockouts).
Winning %: 100
KO %: 87.5%
% of total opponents fought: 32.7%


Wladimir Klitschko: 22-2 (17)
Winning %: 91.7%
KO %: 70.8%
% of total opponents fought: 37.5%.

As we see, Rocky's got the better overall winning % and KO %. However, this question is about competition. Wlad not only has a significant edge in overall numbers (24 to 16), but he fought fighters who were ever ranked at a higher rate than Rocky did (~5% edge to WK)

 

This is the problem with guys from back then. I think you either need to scale up or scale down when comparing heavyweights of then to hw's of today. They're a much different weight class.

 

Wlad would beat the living **** out of Ezzard and you know it deal:deal