Who Was The Hardest Puncher Marciano Met?

Not of the size of a Lenox Lewis no. But you have seen photos of Lavorante after Archie Moore knocked him out haven't you?

http://static.boxrec.com/wiki/9/99/F20541b.jpeg

If that is not the result of severe punching I don't know what to say. Lavorante was a rated up and coming contender. Never been knocked out before but would never win another fight.

 

I think he was more "heavy-handed" than Patterson.
Patterson was no slouch as a puncher : a better KO-scorer, and clearly a faster combo hitter than Walcott.
Patterson could be murderous too, but not quite as much with a single punch.

 

Archie Moore was probably the hardest puncher Marciano fought, while Walcott may have been the more accurate but I don't know. If you were to take Walcott, Moore and an aged Louis there probably wasn't that much difference between them.

 

He was ready for new york at 19 at a time you had to be something to get on the under card at the polo grounds on the night of a world title fight. I don't think you have to be prime to hit your hardest. If you have the advantages Williams had over Omelio I imagine you get to hit him quite a lot with all your power since everyone was beating Omelio by then.

Williams was still a kid but with a perfect 25-0 knockout record he could not be described as that green. He'd been in fights set for ten rounds, won fights in the later rounds. That's a lot of pro rounds.

How do you define prime? Williams was ready to step up and had an unbeaten knock out record. He was fighting a guy who had lost seven fights since losing to old Joe Louis.

 

Joe Louis is the real wild card here. At his peak he was the best heavyweight puncher of all time bar none. Obviously he was well past his best, but it is theoretically possible that he could have retained his power. So the question is how much did Louis have left as a puncher?

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Moore. The all time KO leader. His power carried from MW to HW without a drop off in effectiveness.

We know Davidson wasn't a great fighter or immune to being stopped, but he had decent fringe career and solid wins.

But KOing a 34 lb heavier big man like this cold with one punch suggests a tremendous right hand.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMPXHqGiB28

 

Like a lot of punchers the punch was there it was just harder to produce consistent timing and execute as many openings. Against Omelio Agramonte, Louis decks him like old times but unlike old times omelio gets away from him. Joe can't keep up and close the show like he could. The power was there though. Omelio was not that easy to knock out. Punchers like Big cat Williams, Elkins Brothers, Clarance Henry couldnt drop him. Not all punchers dropped Omelio. I think Louis at that stage still equates as something of a dangerous puncher. You dont go from being lethal to harmless over night. Look at George Foreman. Still hit hard but was not getting knockouts after the Moorer fight. Just harder to pin down a knockout moment. Power is still there though.

 

You can define "monster puncher" any way you like. I'm probably less strict with the terms. I tend to think quite a lot of HW champs hit really f*ckin' hard.

No one else dropped an old Joe Louis, aside from Marciano. But then, you don't rate Marciano as much of a puncher, either.

Your statistic on Charles being stopped 7 times is interesting.
That's ONLY 7 times in 119 fights.
Stopped ONLY once before Walcott did so, once in 75 previous fights.
And he went 19 straight fights (several against ranked HWs) AFTER Walcott KO'd him without being KO'd, until Marciano managed to do so on his second attempt.
4 of Charles's stoppage defeats were when he was veritably washed-up, and even the Marciano rematch is debatable.

 

I believe the heavyweight class back in Rocky's day started at 176-pounds, so technically, Satterfield was a heavyweight.