Why the dislike for Rocky Marciano

"Nothing natural about having more hair when you are 45 than you did at 30."

It is common with actors and they say politicians.

"was a fraud!"

Was John Wayne a fraud?

On second thought, don't answer that.

 

Good post. Bill Russell is an excellent analogy!

 

If Moore was so shopworn when he fought Marciano, then how did he manage to win

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more fights after losing to Marciano? Many of them were by KO and TKO. In fact, after Marciano, Moore went on to win the LH title from Tony Anthony in 1957 via KO. Then after losing it he won it again in 1958 by KO against Yvon Durell. He sent Durell to the canvass four times during that fight before putting him away in the eleventh. Then in the 1959 rematch he sent Durell to the canvas three times before putting him away again by K0 and retaining his LH title. Then in 1960 Moore TKOd Willi Besmanof and won the American HW title. Then in 1961 he regained his LHW title by defeating Giulio Rinaldi via TKO.

All of this after the Marciano fight.

 

Thanks for the history lesson, but it wasnt needed.

1-Archie Moore lived in a rough gritty era where guys would fight anywhere from 4-10x a year or more! If you fought once or twice back then like they do now, youd be broke and dropped out the rankings unless you did something incredible.

2-the rough era with lots of fights each year+ 15 rounds of boxing against the top dogs meant an active elite fighter had to always be in shape and didnt take too many breaks. Factor in the additional wear and tear from road work, sparring, etc and a guy might have over 50 fights by the time hes in his mid-late 20's.

3-Archie was 38 when he met Rocky. Even by todays standards that is considered old for an athlete. Tim Duncan and Kobe Bryant, for example, showed a lot of wear and tear and were encouraged to retire. Holyfield was criticized for continuing to fight after his last hurrahs against lewis and bowe 3, he looked horrible struggling with williams and valuev. Even Floyd who takes care of his body and doesnt do drugs or party too much noticed he slowed down and lacked the explosiveness of his youth and knew it was time to get out of boxing. Same thing with Bernard Hopkins. Nobody was as disciplined as Floyd and Hopkins and theyre around the same age Archie was when he fought Rocky.

4-Do you honestly think a 38 year old boxer fighting in the gritty 1950's, who had been in nearly 200 professional bouts (in addition to amateur bouts), who had 19 losses and had been stopped 4x wasnt shopworn? You can be past your prime and still have some success, that doesnt change the fact youre shopworn from wear, tear, and just natural aging.

 

Not very bright? He's kept his money, stayed away from drugs, and has all his marbles. Not many geniuses take up boxing for a living.

 

Moore didnt win the LHVy title from Anthony, he defended his title against him. Anthony was never champion
The first Rinaldi fight was an over the weight 10 rds match Moore at190.25lbs Rinaldi at181.5lbs.
Moore was defending his tile against him in their second fight. The second Besmanoff fight was promoted as for the American Title there was no such title and ,even if there was Besmanoff would not have been eligible to contest it as he was born in Germany!
Moore was the champion in both the Durelle fights!

Maybe do some research?

 

I think you are misunderstanding me. No, I am definitely not claiming that all those fights didn't have a detrimental effect nor denying the effects of aging on humans.

I am merely pointing out that in Archie's case the documented evidence indicates that he was still in good enough shape almost knock Marciano out, and to win world titles via K)s and TKO's long after Marciano had retired from being shop worn.

BTW

Marciano admitted that he felt seriously shop worn. In fact, it forced him to retire because as he himself explained, he was suffering from backaches and the punches which he had been able to ignore were starting to seriously interfere with his attack.

So it seems as if Marciano was far more shop worn than Moore who continued fighting and even winning world titles while Marciano was forced to retire. Marciano was 32 years old when he fought Moore-that's just a six year difference. Thirty two was considered a bit old for a fighter back then as well.

 

Larry really did not help himself with this outburst. I am a big Marciano fan but still sympathise somewhat with Larry. He was wrong to go so far and this has haunted him. It was always more about the gloating white media at that moment than it was ever about Rocky.

What a great fighter Larry was yet he was never satisfied the media were behind him. He became outspoken after a point. Larry just came across as bitter. Larry reall deserves to be remembered as a great fighter. years later Holmes put things right when he unveiled a statue of Marciano in Brockton.

 

It's the millennials fault, like just about everything else.
Mention Rocky to a millennial and he'll think you're talking about Rocco Siffredi.

 

Whozat?

 

Many of those fights, a real serious portion of a 100 fight career were not strictly serious fights. Until a good fighter was really famous they fought their pals in the clubs every week or so just to stay busy. Local fighters or guys from the circuit. They all went on tour together. Put on a show to entertain farmers and truckers. In many cases without TV to expose this in the small towns a lot of glorified sparring sessions and semi exhibitions were dressed up as real fights. They really were not though. If you went to a lot of small hall fights on some nights only the main event was real.

So whilst Archie was a tough old dog, he fought on many circuits. West coast, East coast, Australia and in between the famous fights he had there were a lot of those stay busy charades among them in all of those places.

 

I agree he was a great champ:

The following documentary is very informative:

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Excellent point...

 

...you do realize it makes Rocky look a lot worse struggling with an older fighter with wear and tear if you claim Moore went on to do great things? If you arent denying Archie was indeed shopworn but still had enough skill to hang with an undefeated younger Rocky and drop him that makes Rocky look bad.

 

But wasn't he a world class fighter at this point?
Does it detract from Foremans second career foes that they fought a 40 year old man?
Lots of guys here consider old Foreman better than the young. I don't, but many do.