Who had the better chin Rocky Marciano or Tom Sharkey?

Read what I wrote! I think Marciano chin was better, but not by a wide margin. I also think Sharkey's durability in his prime is under rated by modern fans.

I defend Rocky plenty. The man had guts, pretty much ended the color line, and fought the best of his time. But at the same time I don't not ignore his Short comings in the ring.

 

Yes, but will some of Rocky's fans admit this? The fact that Sharkey was floored by a bigger class of punchers than Marciano and either went the distance in defeat or turned the tides and won seems to be largely ignored.

No one wants to take s tab at Sharkey fighting under tougher conditions either.

And I saw no replies to Sharkey's lack of defense, which meant he had to take even more punchers. Marciano, who was average with defense employed some of it.

There is some reasonable middle ground in this thread.

 

I think Tyson had a very, very good chin but not an all time great one ... in his KO losses to Douglas and Holyfield he took a ton of punishment before being stopped .. against Lewis he was no where near his prime and again took terrific shots from a huge puncher and a great fighter before he went down .. the other two losses mean nothing ...however, Tyson was counted out twice ...

As far as Chuvalo goes, I hink you are way off ... Chuvalo had one of the three greatest chins I have ever seen ... look at the shots he takes from a young Foreman ... [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2KRcH1N-xY[/ame] go to the 8:00 minute mark ..

 

1. "Sharkey was most certainly used up after the 2nd Jeffries fight."

Why? He came off that fight with six straight ko's. Quotes indicate Sharkey was looking to fight Fitz as he felt he was at the top of his game and wanted to prove himself now the better man. The fight with Ruhlin was probably looked upon as a warmup for Fitz. Ruhlin outlasted Sharkey in a brutal battle and pounded him into helplessness in the 15th, something Jeffries did not do. The ko defeats to Ruhlin and then Fitz are the fights that took it out of Sharkey, not the fight with Jeffries.

2. Charles is a poor analogy as he was 34. A better analogy would be Layne. Layne clearly was not the same fighter after suffering ko defeats to Marciano and Charles, the same as Sharkey was clearly not the same fighter after suffering ko defeats to Ruhlin and Fitz. Arguing that the key fight in Sharkey's decline was against Jeffries is like arguing that the key fight in Layne's decline was against Walcott, in both cases disregarding subsequent victories and strong performances.

3. Elite punchers:

A--You avoided my question. You have frequently posted that Jeffries fought Sharkey with an injured arm. Surviving a one-handed fighter is not that big a deal.

B--Walcott. Interesting theory that this 195 pound man is a second rate puncher. In fact he fought three heavyweight champions. He stopped a prime Ezzard Charles with one punch. He had Joe Louis down three times, as well as having Marciano down. There aren't that many fighters who fought three heavyweight champions and had them all down.

C. Fitz--why even discuss Fitz because Sharkey never proved he could take his punch.

4. Gus Ruhlin stopped Sharkey twice. Kid McCoy had him down twice. Neither of these guys were elite heavyweight punchers and there is no way I consider them superior to, or even on par, with not only Walcott and Moore, but with Louis or Charles either. I would certainly also consider Layne, Savold, and Matthews at least the equal of Ruhlin. McCoy was just a middleweight and never proved he was a puncher at heavyweight at all. Even Sharkey was at 173 when he fought McCoy.

5. "The fact that Marciano was never ko'd . . . does not make him the most durable fighter."

That is not the question before the board. The question is was he more durable than a man who was twice ko'd by the fairly ordinary punching Ruhlin and dropped twice by the middleweight McCoy. Sharkey was by no means the most durable man of his era. Jeffries was. There is a good case that even Fitz was more durable. There clearly was a big gap between Sharkey and Jeff as Sharkey getting ko'd by Fitz and Ruhlin and dropped by McCoy proves.

 

The bottom line for me is not Marciano. Obviously, as he was never knocked out, we don't really know what it would have taken to do it. The issue is Sharkey. He was stopped officially 4 times in 53 fights. Unofficially there probably was a fifth stoppage against Fitz. He was dropped twice by McCoy. His performances against Jeffries are way out of line with his usual level of durability.

I wouldn't consider Sharkey the equal of Uzcudun, Godoy, Chuvalo, Baksi, Bethea, and all kinds of other contenders when it comes to durability.

 

My take is that Fitzsimmons probably only ever genuinely weighed under 160lbs when he had to make the middlweight limit.

Most of the refferences to him weighing under 160 as a heavyweight were either put around by Fitzsimmons himself or people close to him.

Against that I could produce a lot of articles questioning his claimed weights in the press.

 

Fitz had surpisingly big shoulders and sinewy forearms,but his legs were so puny he used to pad his calves out with cotton wool in his ring tights.
In the end, you beleive what you want to.

 

OLD FOGEY

>> I think Jeffries hit harder than Rhulin. So how did Ruhlin get the stoppage? The deduction is elementary, he took advantage of a Sharkey who had taken a lot of punishment in the ring. sharkey was a badly beaten man in the 2nd Jeffries fight,. It took a lot out of him. I can not understand why you can't take that at face value.

>> I disagree. Charles went south after two hard fight with Marciano. The point is valid.

>> There were two fights here. Though Sharkey was floored and hurt in both, but lasted the distance and took hard shots. Read the reports. They say some of the shots Sharkey took would have been Ko'd on the spot had they hit other men.

>> Charles was down 30 times in his career. Walcott caught him with a perfectly placed shot. Louis had iffy balance, and did not have the best chin either. I think Wlacott's knock down were due to Louis having poor defense vs coutners, and iffy balance. Walcott's KO percentage is rather low despite facing a lot of joruneyman. Plus his style wasn't to go for the KO.

>>Fitz was a class above any puncher Maricano ever fought. Would you agree? If you say Yes, then you are comparing apples to oranges, as Marciano never proved he could take such a wallop.

>>We have gone over this. Ruhlin stopped a Sharkey who already taken a career's worth of punishment. I won't say McCoy was a deadly puncher, but Ring Magazine felt he was good enough to make their cut in the top 100 punchers of all time. It seems you totally brush off the fact that the two best punchers Marciano fought, who were not in Jeffries class as a hitter floored him.

Ok--Use McCoy as an example. Rocky was in fact stunned by light hitters than McCoy in Vingo and Lowry, who had very low KO percentages. This to me is as bad or worse than being floored by a top level fighter, which McCoy clearly was in his time.

5. "The fact that Marciano was never ko'd . . . does not make him the most durable fighter."

>> If Rocky fought past his prime, or had to come back from broken bones and several hard fights, he would have been KO'd sooner or later. I do not think Fitz in his prime was more durable than Sharkey in his prime. The differnce here is Fitz hit harder, had better defnese, better skills, and fought smarter hence he did not have to take as many shots.

 

Sharkey never fought the class and experienced fighters of a Walcott or a solid combination puncher like Charles. Most of Sharkeys opponents had under 20 fights. A left hook by Walcott takes his head off and Ezzard makes him look bad with those combo drills to the head.. Archie Moore would stop him. Jeffries was a big strong boy but was a clubbing puncher who wore you down, Sorry but I see a different class of fighter that Marciano fought. IMO Sharkey gets stopped by all of the 3 fellows I mentioned above. Speed and accuracy is a ***** and pin point power kills. Sharkey was tough but fought a lot of guys with less then 10-20 fights and fighting boxers with the class and experience of above did not exist in that day.

 

As you said reports could be exaggerated or sensationalized! The fact is Vingo only has a recorded 7 Ko's in 18 fights, for a lowly 38.89 KO percentage vs. very weak compeition outside of Marciano. Vingo a good puncher? I doubt it.

No-- Vingo could not be championship calibre. He had already lost prior to facing Marciano, and never had a scheduled fight past 6 rounds in 17 outings. The sounds like a club fighter to me.

For Marciano to be stunned by a guy like this, makes me wonder what would happened if he was in the ring vs a big puncher.

 

Vingo's record does not really represent a big puncher ... maybe he was getting better and learning to use leverage keeping in mind how young he was ..