Who`s Greater Joe or Rocky

This thread is highly offensive. Moreso than the rest of the dog**** posted today.

 

While we're on the subject of Marciano:

It's worth mentioning that Marciano rarely fought fighters who came in above 200. In fact, he sometimes outweighed his opponents, for example, he was ¼ pound heavier than Archie Moore, 2 pounds heavier than Charles in their first meeting, ¼ heavier than La Starza in their second meeting.

And bar his fights with Don Cockell, Louis, Savold, Jonny Skhor, Elridge Eatman, Bill Wilson and a couple of early career fights, all his fights were with opponents who came in to the fight, inside the cruiserweight limit.

So when people often credit Marciano on fighting bigger opponents, if those fights were in today's modern sport, they were actually all pretty much within his own weight class, which would be cruiserweight.

I've also seen a lot of people say that when people hypothetically match-up Marciano with heavyweights, they respond by saying when people vote against him that in today's game he would be a light heavy and could probably make the super-middle limit.

Which is obviously wrong, he never weighed in at a light-heavy limit, the lowest he ever weighed in at was 178 pounds. Okay, very close, but not inside. And this was very early in his career. When he was developed and primed, he rarely deviated from between 184-190 pounds. He could of possibly made the light-heavy limit early in his career, but not in his prime. At no point do I believe he could of made the 168 super-middleweight limit that we have today.

Therefore when we rank him in a hypothetical match-up sense, we can't talk about putting in him with the Calzaghe's or Jones Jr's or Ezzard Charles', when we are talking prime-for-prime. Because one, a guy like Calzaghe has never fought inside or even within about 8 or 9 pounds of a prime Marciano's weight, and guys like Jones Jr and Ezzard Charles were never primed when they entered his weight class.

Therefore, when we rank him hypothetically, we have to rank him against cruiserweights, the weight at which he fought at most often and the weight of which his a lot of his opponents weighed when he fought them, or heavyweights, the official weight class at which he actually fought, and the weight class of most of his opponents and the actual weight of a fair few aswell.

It's a given that if you talk about Marciano vs Calzaghe, that Rocky would knock him out. For one simple reason, he's far too big. We are talking about a hypothetical match-up where one guy prime-for-prime outweighs the other by around 17-22 lbs, and this is a guy with insane power who knocked out heavyweights.

Because we have to rank Marciano against guys bigger than himself, I take this view a lot of the time aswell. That Marciano would be outmuscled by the 'super-heavies' who can take a punch. Accounts of fights with Bernie Reynolds and Bill Wilson have shown that Marciano was outmuscled and out-fought at times, particularly the first round of the Reynolds fight before he came back to knock him out.

Now if he's coming up against guys packing an extra 20-50 pounds in weight, better conditioned guys aswell, he's going to struggle in the sense that he may be physically strong and have great stamina, but he's still a small heavy. Not even a heavy, a small cruiser.

While you can give credit to Marciano that he would be fighting, and has fought, a lot of guys that outweighed him, you can pick holes in a head-to-head basis because although he had terrific power, an excellent chin, endless stamina and a lot of heart, he's going to be outmuscled, out fought, ********* by a lot of those bigger, taller, physically stronger heavies.

I mean even a guy I don't rate particularly higher, and have a strong dislike for, in Vitali Klitschko, could very well beat Marciano. Now Vitali is a guy with, I'll say it, a weak resume. He's beaten names like Larry Donald, Corrie Sanders, Herbie Hide, Danny Williams, Samuel Peter, Timo Hoffman. These rank among his best wins. And they frankly, are nobody's compared to the likes of Rocky Marciano.

But even with the fact that he hasn't beaten anybody of Marciano's quality, I feel Vitali would stand a good chance of beating him. Because of several reasons. Marciano doesn't beat him comprehensively in any single important area. You might say power, but Vitali Klitschko has the highest KO percentage of any heavyweight ever. You might say chin, but Marciano has been put down, Vitali never has, and he's taken big shots aswell. You might say stamina, to which you would be correct, as I'm sure Marciano has much, much better stamina than Vitali Klitschko, but a guy like Vitali doesn't need stamina, he has other intangibles that suit the way he fights.

He's going to be just as powerful, just as durable, physically stronger, taller and with a better jab. So who's to say that Vitali couldn't just set himself and pick Marciano off with the jab from 7-8 inches away? There's of course a chance that Marciano could keep catching him with a overhand rights and knock him out, but a small chance.

That's why I find it hard to rank Marciano higher, because of his intangibles, I find it hard to rank him high in a H2H sense, even against lesser-rated heavyweights. And his resume looks very good at a glance, but when you look in depth, you see that the wins against fellow ATG's are and deserve to be discredited slightly because they are way past their bests. And in terms of ability, he techincally was slightly under-rated, but still very average.

 

Marciano all the way............ Despite beating an old B-Hops & Roy Jones, Joe Calzaghe is still not a world-wide "Household" name... Marciano is a legend....

 

I clicked on this thinking it was Joe vs Rocky Balboa...

 

Marciano beat more top notch opposition than Calzaghe has.

 

:rofl That is some of the worst logic I've ever heard. As if there is any historical comparison between the mediocre and short-lived SMW division and the Heavyweight division.

 

LOL.

 

Funny thing is, BF, I've stood next to JC and Rocky. Joe's taller and has longer arms. Also, he's big-boned, and think he could carry another 12 pounds.

Grew up around Rocky, so got to recognize the qualities -- largely un appreciated by boxing purists -- that made him so special.

It's not too much of a stretch -- with guys jumpin' weight classes -- to imagine some promoter tryin' to make a match like that today.

It'd ring-up more PPV $'s than Pac-DLH.

 

SMW as a weight class has only been around for 20 years though. HW has been around for 150.

Anyway, Marciano, unlike Calzaghe, actually cleared out the other best fighters that were out there. Their resumes are pretty similar (not great, with a few good wins over past-prime fighters and a couple good wins over prime fighters), but the fact that Rocky fought the best who were out there gives him the edge.

 

bump

 

Seeing that Charles was Heavy Champ...disputed, even though no other Champ was there to be and fought some 7 Champion fights, before losing ot Walcott, he was at 32 still prime vs a 28 year old Rock.
It was after the Rock that he became a shot fighter...

Back in the day 168 was still Lt. Heavy. Billy Conn as Lt. Heavy, fought at that weight before Louis...one could pick one's fighting weight, in the divisions were very large. And Cal was and still is in my antique book a Lt. Heavy.
Rock was after ring speed and endurance so came in as lean and mean as he could.
Having 36 hours to rehydrate form 168 what weight so you think Cal came into the ring at. 180?
If so that is with in 5 pounds of each other.

 

:deal

 

p4p, Calzaghe.

 

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Calzaghe