Who had the better chin Rocky Marciano or Tom Sharkey?

So you are openly questioning the validity of the newspaper coverage from Rocky's hometown papers that detail his being hurt by Lowery ?

 

I honestly think that you are confusing posters and their points. My point is directed to those who say Rocky was never hurt. The Lowry fight was documented in multiple newspapers. I am not debating Marciano's chin v.s. Sharkeys. I am questioning your rational thought process. Are you saying you do not acknowledge the coverage stating Rocky was badly hurt several times by Lowry because no film exists ? Are you also saying that at 27 his chin was weaker than at 30 ?

 

I beleive Vingo is generally perceived as being a good to dangerous puncher, though rather raw.
Percentages are misleading imo.
Kid Carter described on this forum yesterday as a "murderous puncher", has a 35.44 ko %
Ike Williams only has a 38.71%.
Vingo is 7 kos in 18 fights to be sure,or you could say 7 kos in 16 wins ,ie one less than 50%.
To be fair, the kos were over pretty low grade competition.

 

It was too early to tell what his long term potential was ... prior to fighting Rocky it did seem to be so far so good ... I doubt his management knew they were throwing him with an all time great to be when they made the match ...

 

1. "Jeffries hit harder than Ruhlin"--Sonny Liston probably hit harder than Archie Moore, but Burt Whitehurst went the full distance twice with Sonny and was ko'd twice by Moore. And Joey Rowan ko'd Whitehurst in the first round. I guess this means Rowan punched harder than Liston or Moore?

2. There can be a lot of reasons Jeffries couldn't ko Sharkey and Ruhlin could. For one, Jeff might have had trouble hitting someone that short with his best punches, while Ruhlin could handle a short fighter. The descriptions of the Choynski fight indicate Jeff was confused by Choynski ducking under his punches. An even better possibility is that Sharkey was probably the only guy who carried the fight to Jeffries and fought him in tight. Most of Jeff's opponents either ran or tried to box him. He generally had room to punch. Jeff wouldn't be the only big man who had trouble with guys who swarmed him. Whitehurst said he was getting killed fighting Liston on the outside until he figured out that it was best to get chest to chest with Sonny, which was like "the eye of the storm". Louis admitted he had his greatest difficulty with swarmers like Godoy and Marciano who didn't give him room to punch. I noticed in the one good film of Jeffries, his losing fight when past it with Johnson, he seems able to punch much better at a distance. Johnson dominated him in close and Jeffries frankly looks rather inept.

3. "Sharkey took hard shots"--I hope so. He was a world class fighter. He should take harder shots than a journeyman. Doesn't prove he took punches at the level of say, someone like Uzcudun, Godoy, Brion, etc. Or Marciano.

4. "Fitz was a class above any puncher Marciano ever fought. Do you agree?"

No.

Fitz was a super-middleweight. Ko'ing even a long laid-off Corbett plus contenders like Ruhlin, Maher, and Sharkey was impressive for a man his size, but would have been less so for a full-sized heavyweight. He was a great fighter and great p4p puncher, but that he was a superior puncher to champions from other eras 30 to 50 pounds heavier is dubious and not supported by any evidence.

5. "Charles was down 30 times"--Charles was at his peak, and had been stopped only once when Walcott ko'd him. One can argue that Walcott is the only man to ko him in his prime. For his career, Charles was ko'd 7 times in 119 fights (or 1 in 17), Sharkey 4 in 53 (or 1 in 13). And this despite Charles fighting to a far older age and suffering four ko's when washed up. Charles was far more durable than Sharkey in my judgement.

6. "Walcott caught him with a perfectly placed shot."

A scathing criticism, I guess.

7. "If Marciano fought past his prime . . . or had several hard fights"

Well, he fought to 32, which is older than Sharkey fought to. As for having hard fights, if he could fight Louis, Walcott, Charles, Moore, Layne, Matthews, etc and not have hard fights, he must have been pretty good indeed.

8. "McCoy as an example"--The fact is Sharkey was down as often from the 156 lb McCoy as he was from the huge Jeffries. Choynski was ko'd by the welterweight Barbados Joe Walcott. No one ever questioned Jeff's chin or toughness in his own era. His punch was questioned, though. Not being able to ko men who were knocked down by middleweights or knocked out by welterweights certainly raises issues about Jeff's power.

 

Let it go now , Old Fogey, and Suzie Q , have compehensively demolished every argument you have proffered.

Ten was counted some time ago, in the words of the song," Baby, baby ,baby, you're out of time". Chris Farlowe, circa 1960's?

 

bump

 

marciano had by far the better chin.its not even close

 

OLD FOGEY, you are spinning things. Clearly Jeffries was a harder hitter than Ruhlin or anyone Marciano faced. Period, end of sentence, end the paragraph, close the book. Sharkey in his prime lasted the distance twice with Jeffires and proved his durability. It seems like ignore this point. Marciano was never hit as hard or as punished.

The Marciano retort I sometimes hear is Jeffries somehow was not a big hitter because Sharkey lasted the difference. Ok--ante up, Lowry who was a joruneyman not only lasted the distance with Marciano twice, some felt he beat him, and papers say the light hitter stunned him. Touché.

Yes, and one reason is Sharkey was on the decline when he fought Ruhlin after going through a few wars. Again, I find it hard to understand why you can buy into this. I could list countless fighters who were KO'd by lesser punchers in the decline, but stood up to harder punchers and went the distance in their prime. Jeffries had good short punches to the head or body. Read up and you will see. While Jeffries did have trouble with Choynski, Choynski was very fleet footed, and more defensive in comparison to the straight forward charging Sharkey. Besides, it was only Jeffries 7th recorded fight when he met Choynski.

In the first fight, it was Jeffries who lead. In the second fight, it was Sharkey who took the lead, but I do believe Jeffries injured arm in round two had something to do with it. Toward the end of the fight, Jeffries punished Sharkey and took the lead.

Compare a man past his prime who has not fought in years, lost 80 pounds, and vs. a hall of fame guy in his prime with good smothering defense? Sounds fair to me. I do not think you have seen much of this fight on film, and the full 15 rounds is out there. If you see film, you will see Jeffries landed some short stuff, even shook of Johnson with Body shots in the 10th.

Most who saw them both disagree. Why did it take Marciano on average 9 rounds to win his title matches vs slightly past their prime sub 200 pound men? In some cases Rocky landed 100's of power shots, yet with Fitz it often only too one or two good shots to lay his man flat on their back.

Fitz Ko'd slower fighters easier. A 230+ Pound Dunkhorst did not last more than 3 rounds. Besides Ruhlin was bigger than any ranked opponent Marciano fought. I find if hilarious when stubborn Marciano fans think the other guys competition were light and small. Well, so was Rocky and his best competition. Rocky did not defend against one man 200 pound or more.

Charles was a middle weight and a light heavy weight. In fact he was KO'd by a middle weight in a match where he was floored 8 times. Sharkey always fought at heavy. If you take out Charles middle weight and light heavy matches, and do the math, I think your numbers will not looks as favorable in an apples to apples comparison with heavyweight matches alone.

Again, age is not the only factor in a fighters prime. Tough fights, lifestyle out of the ring, and injures matter too. Rocky retired before any of the above caught up to him. Had Rocky fought on he would have eventually lost.

Jeffries floored his man in all his matches ( excpet his comeback match ) , and unlike Marciano did not feast on a dozen bottom shelf tomato cans. Rocky's resume is full of fighters with losing records, trial horses and joruneyman. Jeffries resume has very little fat on it. The reason Jeffries did not KO Choyski is three fold. 1 ) Jeffries was green. 2 ) Choynski was a hall of fame fighter. 3 ) Choynski ran the 2nd half of the fight.

McCoy for his part was pretty hard to stop. He only had 4 stoppage losses in 109 fights. As I said before Ring Magazine felt McCoy was among their top 100 punchers of all time. With 66 Ko's, a corkscrew punch that created cuts, and KO's over big punchers in Choynski and Maher. I think you are underestimating McCoy a tad. Sharkey was down, but Ko'd McCoy in his prime. It also seems McCoy's listed weight for the Sharkey fight was lower than normal. Its hard to tell if the 156 lb was accurate for this fight, as McCoy had a reputation for trickery when it came to things like his weight, his health, and perhaps a dive.

Was McCoy only a super middle to light heavy? Sure, but he was taller than Marciano, and had about 7" of reach on him. So in that sense he was not small.

 

I don't know that it is established that Jeffries hit harder than Walcott or Moore really.
Sharkey was a face first brawler who came forward he was very easy to hit.Johnson said he was" very crude".
Lowry was a defensive minded spoiler, who rarely got tagged solidly, and was more often than not content to go the distance and put up a decent show.
Comparing how fighters did against them is rather misleading ,imo.
Your take that Sharkey was in decline is not supported by his results leading up to his fight with Ruhlin .Sharkey was only 30 when he retired,and this takes into account 2 years where he did no fighting and ,consequently had no ringwear ,effectively he retired at 28.
I should think Sharkey had a good chin,but definitely ,not as good as Marciano's.
Marciano's record has its share of stumble bums in it,but his best wins were over active winning fighters .
Jeffries best wins were over inactive fighters,