Why did Marciano Choose to defend against Charles than Valdez ?

I might be misunderstanding this post,

but if you mean Valdes had some sort of claim over LaStarza for a shot at Marciano in September of 1953, I don't see it. He had lost more fights in his previous 6 fights than LaStarza had lost in his career. The real issue would have been with Charles, not Valdes.

If you mean Valdes was more qualified--or at least as qualified--in 1955 as LaStarza had been in 1953, I agree.

 

In 1955, somehow journeyman Nino Valdes became n.1 contender with an 11-fight winning streak (against 10 bums plus Ezzard Charles who took him lightly and lost a close decision).

Marciano, ready to retire because of back problems, wanted Nino Valdes to be his 49th and final fight, because he and his handlers saw Valdes as a stationary target who would be easy to knock out (Valdes had already been knocked out by 2 bums with losing records).

Instead, Valdes was lured into a fight by Archie Moore, who wanted to fight Marciano. Moore of course easily schooled Valdes, and so became the top contender. Marciano didn't want to fight anymore, so Moore started calling Marciano a coward in the newspapers for wanting to retire instead of fighting him. Marciano was forced into one more fight, with Moore.

Valdes retired at age 35 with a record of 48-18. If that's a duck, then Muhammad Ali ducked Eddie Machen (who by the way knocked out Nino Valdes in 1956).

Ezzard Charles had recently held the HW title and was a serious contender at the age of 33.

End this ******ed thread.

 

"set the world alight"

No.

But he wasn't exactly nothing. He record through his first 50 fights into 1954 was 47 and 3. His losses were to the pretty good journeyman Dick Wagner back in 1948 when he was not yet 21, and to the highly rated light-heavy Bob Murphy, and LaStarza. He reversed the loss to Wagner, and also had a win over LaStarza.

I have The Ring issue for the ratings of August, 1953. At that point Bucceroni had a win over the #1 contender, LaStarza, and had just beaten the then #5 contender, Tommy Harrison (who would go on a few months later to beat Earl Walls). He also held a win over the #4 light-heavy contender, Danny Nardico. In his next fight he would defeat the #5 light-heavy contender, Jimmy Slade, a fighter who would go on to defeat Henry and Jackson to rise to #4 in the heavyweight rankings.

With no really bad losses or draws to second-stringers, and quite a few wins over highly ranked fighters-plus a consistent record--Bucceroni was a pretty good fighter and I think deserved his ranking.

Other than Wagner, all the fighters who ever beat Bucceroni made appearances in The Ring's yearly rankings.


"found wanting"

I thought off the film LaStarza showed pretty well. He after all lasted longer than Charles did his return match with Marciano, or than Moore did. Not that bad a performance.

Perhaps better than Valdes did against Satterfield?

 

Yes. This was my intended meaning.

 

It sometimes feels as if the people who don’t like Marciano, failed to find an opponent that he ducked, and then tried to manufacture one in Valdez.

At worst the facts allow for a number of interpretations.

It would be consistent with the evidence, that Marciano was simply doing his duty as champion, and fighting the No 1 ranked contenders.

Alternatively, it is possible that Marciano or his handlers had identified Valdez as a threat, and were very lucky in that they were always given a way around him, that was not too obvious.

In the case of the latter explanation, the burden of proof would be fairly heavily upon those advocating it.

 

When Valdes was on a roll for that two-year period from the summer of 1953 to the summer of 1955, he seemed to have a very good jab and he used his reach quite well.

I don't know if he got a new trainer. I don't know what it was that turned it around for him mentally. In the fights during this period, everyone talks about his very good jab. The write-ups of his fights always describe his scoring jab playing a key role. Hell, his fight with Parker was considered boring because all Valdes and Parker did was jab (or hold, which guys who depend on the jab are taught to do).

And the descriptions of the Moore-Valdes rematch in 1955 definitely describe Valdes as being a lot different than their previous fight. He had Moore's eye swollen and he had Archie bleeding out of the nose and mouth, and he had Moore hurt at one point but didn't capitalize. It was also an even fight after 13 rounds (even according to guys who didn't particularly like the way Valdes fought). Their first meeting wasn't close.

Valdes is an example of a guy who, when he was right mentally, was devastating. And when he wasn't right, he could and often did lose to anyone.

I do believe Valdes' one-foot reach advantage over Marciano was a concern for Weill during this period, particularly after Marciano's troubles in sparring with another large heavyweight and Rocky getting his nose damaged against Charles.

I looked up Marciano's sparring partner after reading about his battles with Rocky leading up to Charles II, and there's not even a mention of him on Boxrec. So he wasn't exactly a world-class, dangerous guy.

In 1954/1955, Valdes was a real threat to Marciano. After Nino lost the decision to Moore, he looked like hell against Satterfield.

If you look at Valdes against Jackson and Nino against Satterfield, you can see the fire and the conditioning is missing against Satterfield. Nino had been totally deflated by his close loss to Moore (especially considering Valdes thought he won).

It's no different if you look at Jimmy Young against Foreman, then look at Young a year later against Ocasio.

Boxing was very much a mental game for those two guys. When Valdes got his chance to take out his anger on ****ell, who got the shot instead of him, Nino destroyed him. Marciano even expressed shock, in the days before the Moore fight, that Valdes had handled ****ell so easily because Marciano admitted he had a hard time with ****ell.

I think, had they fought any time during their careers, Marciano would probably beat Valdes ... with the exception of that period late in 1954/early 1955 when Marciano wasn't looking sharp in the gym or against a guy like Don ****ell.

A lot of people from that period did too, that's why this belief has stayed around for 60 years.

 

I think is who you are beating rather than how many.

I don't judge fighter by how good the guys were who beat him ,I judge him by how good the guys he beat were.

 

Mission failed.

 

Was he though?

Rex Layne was big, and young, and had a good punch, and look waht Marciano did to him. Valdez does not seem to have been that good defensivley, or that good at using his size to his advantage.

One scenario is that Marciano just does a Layne job on him.

Eiter way, a champions obligation is to meet the #1 contender, not the last guy who beat him.

 

No problem. Everyone's entitled to their own criteria.

And I assume we are talking about Bucceroni rather than LaStarza, or is it both.

But my criteria is a bit different, I guess. It is true that merely losing to a very good fighter does not prove in itself anything, but if you only lose to top men while having a lot of fights that does mean something. Bucceroni had only lost to very top rated fighters since he was a green twenty year old, and he had beaten two of the three who had beaten him.

He also had beaten quite a few top men. Here are the ratings which have been printed before

August 18, 1953-heavyweights

Champion--Rocky Marciano

1--Roland LaStarza*
2--Ezzard Charles
3--Dan Bucceroni
4--Nino Valdes
5--Tommy Harrison*

Light-heavyweights

Champion--Archie Moore

1--Joey Maxim
2--Harold Johnson
3--Yolande Pompey
4--Danny Nardico*
5--Jimmy Slade*

*fighters Bucceroni had beaten or would beat in the next couple of months.

To me, a number three rating shouldn't be all that controversial.

Bucceroni had actually been a rated fighter all the way back in 1950 at light-heavyweight. He was rated #8 that year.

 

DubbleChin

This is an exaggeration. Valdes was a good fighter, dangerous. Nothing more. Rocky Marciano? Now that was an all time great, devastating fighter. Valdes was not in Rocky's league, and at no point in his career could withstand the punishment, workrate, and stamina Marciano would bring to him. Marciano would either knock Valdes out, or make him quit.

Dubblechin,

You don't think Marciano's seen a good jab before? You think Valdes had a better jab than Joe Louis? Louis was 6'2 214lb, and had a top notch, elegant left jab. Better than Valdes in my opinion. Louis skills were also better than Valdes. Even at 37, I pick Louis over any version of Valdes. Louis had height, weight, and reach measurables similar to Valdes.

 

HE Grant

So Valdes losing to 5'10 185lb fighters like Archie Mcbride, Archie Moore 2x, Harold Johnson, and Bob Satterfield shows he has the styles advantage against Marciano?

Team Marciano chose the BETTER guy. They also chose the # 1 guy. That is the champions obligation, to face the # 1 rated contender. Wouldn't you agree?

We know

 

This size fetish some have doesn't make much sense back then.

Valdes and Baker, the two big guys with the size advantages went 0-8 against Moore, Johnson, Satterfield, and Henry.

The most dangerous guy out there for Marciano to fight that he didn't fight was probably Harold Johnson.

 

People seem to think cause Marciano was 5-10 with a 67" reach...that meant he would be severely handicapped and vulnerable vs 6-3 79" reach niño valdes