BILLY CONN VS EZZARD CHARLAS, JOE WALCOTT AND ROCKY MARCIANO

[marchegianorock]

Interesting match ups. Can the Billy Conn that almost won the title from Joe Louis in 1941 could he had beaten that night. Ezzard Charles, Jersey Joe Walcott and Rocky Marciano?

[jaclem2]

..charles no...walcott maybe...marciano no....

[Goodnight, Irene]

Charles & Walcott, no. Marciano, a real shot.

[DrDuke]

I won't favour him against anybody of them, but he could have troubled them all for sure.

[Kalan]

Billy needed to add 15 pounds of muscle.... Roy Jones added 25 pounds of muscle for Ruiz and boxed the shitt out of him... If Conn had a great strength trainer he could easily put that much on his slender frame.

Conn would out-box Walcott and Marciano like falling off a log -- if he had the weight and strength for it...

Ezzard Charles was at his best at Light Heavyweight.. He would beat the best Billy Conn... Charles went 40-0 against Archie Moore, Jimmy Bivins, Lloyd Marshall, Joe Walcott, Charley Burley and other top fighters from 1944 to 1951... That stretch included 9 Heavyweight Championship Fights... Charles had a SD loss to Elmer Ray in there that everyone reported he won easily and that it was the result of corrupt judging...

Charles said his form started falling off in 1951 .... and the harder he trained the worse he got.

[Crease]

I think that Charles would outclass him... Conn at this peak would be great to watch, but Charles is one of the best Light Heavies ever and he's ahead of the pack and that packs includes Conn.

Conn could defeat Walcott, but a peak Walcott - like what he showed us when he stopped Charles or when he shook the daylights out of Joe Louis in 1947. Looking at it like that - I would favour Walcott.

And Marciano would stop him via KO.

[ClivePatrickLyons]

No Ezzard beats him un dec
JJW Stops him in 15
Rocky stops him in 5

[Kalan]

Loses to Charles by UD
Stops Walcott in 12...
Stops Marciano in 15

[ClivePatrickLyons]

Loses to Charles by UD
Stops Walcott in 12...
Stops Marciano in 15

I cannot rate Ezzard a better Heavyweight then Rocky or JJW styles make fight's certainly But i would imagine if Ezzard beats Conn then so to would Rocky and JJW.

[Kalan]

Not at all... Charles was a Hell of a lot better than Marciano or Walcott at his best... He was brilliant.

The best Charles beat Archie Moore 3 times without a loss... and he beat a younger Joe Walcott twice.

Charles complained about being slow and sluggish for many years ... including right before Walcott knocked him out... Charles died of ALS... It's a nerve disease that slowly degenerates your motor skills until you can't lift a finger...

The only thing slower than ALS is aging ... that is the slow progressing kind.

It can take 40 years or more to do it's dirty work... You don't even know you have ALS until you start stumbling around and get diagnosed by a specialist... It might have been undermining your nervous system for umpteen years by that point, and you found ways to compensate for the initial symptoms...

[BoxBuzz]

Not at all... Charles was a Hell of a lot better than Marciano or Walcott at his best... He was brilliant.

The best Charles beat Archie Moore 3 times without a loss... and he beat a younger Joe Walcott twice.

Charles complained about being slow and sluggish for many years ... including right before Walcott knocked him out... Charles died of ALS... It's a nerve disease that slowly degenerates your motor skills until you can't lift a finger...

The only thing slower than ALS is aging ... that is the slow progressing kind.

It can take 40 years or more to do it's dirty work... You don't even know you have ALS until you start stumbling around and get diagnosed by a specialist... It might have been undermining your nervous system for umpteen years by that point, and you found ways to compensate for the initial symptoms...

This statement has been determined by the truth patrol to be fair and accurate. Though the Moore outcomes may have been happenstance. Nevertheless.....no errors found.

[Kalan]

You're not the truth patrol... You don't know who your daddy was.

[BoxBuzz]

You're not the truth patrol... You don't know who your daddy was.

I don't appreciate your snide remarks. However, as surprising as it must be, even to you....that statement did pass the smell test. Congratulations. Like the proverbial stopped clock you have done it!

[Kalan]

Snide for snide, Snidely....

I had a hunch you were an abandoned street urchin who was taken in by Chester the Molester.... What a sad life for a 5-year-old... You finally escaped through a sewer hole when you were 19 and decided to dedicate your life to victims of brain trauma, which you surmised led Chester to do the abominable acts he performed on you.

No wonder you're such a mess.

[Ambling Alp II]

I think that Charles would outclass him... Conn at this peak would be great to watch, but Charles is one of the best Light Heavies ever and he's ahead of the pack and that packs includes Conn.

Conn could defeat Walcott, but a peak Walcott - like what he showed us when he stopped Charles or when he shook the daylights out of Joe Louis in 1947. Looking at it like that - I would favour Walcott.

And Marciano would stop him via KO.

Pretty much agree with this. He might make things difficult for a while, but eventually he is going to lose. He doesn't have the power to stop them. He isn't going to outbox Charles. Walcott was fast enough to get to him. Marciano would get to him sooner or later with the sheer amount of punches that Marciano threw.

[Kalan]

At 174 pounds, Conn had a prime Joe Louis on the way out -- and was leading on the cards.... That's better than Walcott could do to an old. slowed down, debouched Louis -- who could barely get out of his own way let alone box or fight well..

If Conn were able to add 20 pounds of rock hard muscle to his frame.... He'd have his way with Rocky or Walcott.

However, they didn't have the modern strength training science that Roy Jones employed to get that accomplished.

[HomicideHenry]

If Conn were any bigger, he'd of not had the speed and reflexes that made him so successful against Joe Louis and others.

[Kalan]

If Conn were any bigger, he'd of not had the speed and reflexes that made him so successful against Joe Louis and others.

People don't understand the science of today's sport specific strength training... It's not your bone frame that propels your movements.. It's your musculature that propels your bone frame.. Modern athletes aren’t bigger, stronger, and faster because genetics has moved us 2000 years in 2 or 3 generations – its advanced nutrition science and strength training methodology that’s responsible... A stronger arm drives a harder, faster punch.

Swimmers didn’t lift weights 50 years ago. Skaters didn’t. They didn’t do spinning jumps with 4 revolutions.. You didn’t see the routines today’s gymnasts do on the high bar, parallel bars, rings, pommel horse, vault, and floor.. Women now swim and sprint faster than men did in the 1950’s... Athletes are stronger with more spring and power... Conn could do the same... He could add 20 pounds and take care of Marciano and Walcott with blazing speed and finesse.

It’s not big muscles... It’s not showcase muscles... It’s not striations and symmetry... It’s responsive, functional, compact, fast-twitch muscle fibers that drive harder, faster, and more accurate punches... That is how Roy Jones became the first Middleweight Champion in 106 years to win a Heavyweight Title... He weighed into the ring at 199 and solid as a brick.. Here's proof of Roy's "into the ring weight" ...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ynKvpgrD8c

[HomicideHenry]

He got alot of help from the referee in the Ruiz fight, and even at that Ruiz was about the weakest Heavyweight champion in history. I don't think the argument is exactly valid because there's many variables to consider, and most people just buy into the idea that muscle mass equates to power, etc.

I'll take a guy like Jimmy Wilde any day who looked like a helpless school boy, who knocked out hundreds of men 100 pounds bigger than him in carnivals, let alone the vast number of men he kayoed in the pros.... Over the jacked up bodybuilders of today who have next to no fluidity, no timing, etc and look sloppy as hell in that ring.

[Kalan]

I knew you'd talk about "Body Building" again.... Obviously you didn't read my post... Modern sport specific strength training has nothing to do with Body Building, which looks for striations, symmetry, and mass for showcase type muscles...

Strength Training develops speedy, powerful, flexible, responsive muscles, specific to your sport... It worked for Roy Jones who went from 175 to 199 to become a Heavyweight - and knocked the living crap out of John Ruiz.. Ruiz, of course, won the Heavyweight Title by knocking down Evander Holyfield and beating him -- not as big a chump as you think.

Jimmy Wilde was as charlatan who fought 4th and 5th rate fighters to pad his Boxing record to a greater degree than anybody else in the history of the sport... Near the end of his career he finally fought a couple decent fighters and got his ass kicked in... But most of the time he fought somebody who couldn't beat your sister.

[Kalan]

Old-n-Moldie, you're the lying jackass who said Roy Jones added 8 pounds for Ruiz and didn't rehydrate after the weigh-in, which was his practice... He weighed 199 into the ring https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ynKvpgrD8c adding 10 pounds from the weigh-in, where he weighed in fully dressed.

19th Century strongman Eugen Sandow and other strength pioneers proved you could add size and strength in ANY era... There was the fear of getting muscle bound, which came from weight lifting haphazardly and not consulting experts... For this reason Boxing was one of the last sports to make wide use of weights and strength training.

[HomicideHenry]

I don't think Kalan understands that muscle mass, strength training, etc was not ideal (and still isn't) for combat sports where reflexes, timing, and fluidity are what ultimately matter in sports that can end at any time in a matter of seconds.

Louis Cyr and Horace Barre, in the same era as Eugene Sandow, competed from time to time as wrestlers and boxers as part of their "act" as strongmen... But they could never, ever, ever, ever match up to the smaller, quicker, and therefore more deadly competitors of the day like Frank Gotch, Farmer Burns, JH McLaughlin, William Muldoon, etc.

More times than not, the jacked up bodybuilder types in boxing seldom ever go far in the sport. Those that do, eventually, get defeated by comparative "soft bodies" who are more skilled than the Herculean types.

As Victor Hugo once penned:

"David's will always have their way with Goliath's just as cats will have their way with dogs."

Now, I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with strength training in boxing... However, it should be down the priority list... And old-time techniques are more important (in my mind anyways) in developing punching power than lifting weights, flipping tractor tires, etc.

Buy punching bags that are 200, 300, etc pounds and get those badboys to moving; and above all else sharpen up on your overall technique and delivery of punches. It doesn't take that much effort, or power, to actually knock someone out.

[Kalan]

I don't think Kalan understands that muscle mass, strength training, etc was not ideal (and still isn't) for combat sports where reflexes, timing, and fluidity are what ultimately matter in sports that can end at any time in a matter of seconds.

As Victor Hugo once penned:

"David's will always have their way with Goliath's just as cats will have their way with dogs."

Now, I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with strength training in boxing... However, it should be down the priority list... And old-time techniques are more important (in my mind anyways) in developing punching power than lifting weights, flipping tractor tires, etc.

Who was bigger and stronger, Liston or Patterson?.... Foreman or Frazier? .... Joshua or Klitschko? .... Golovkin or Brook? .... Spence or Algieri? .... Johnson or Burns? .... Louis or Conn? .... Jeffries or Fitzsimmons? ... Maxim or Robinson? ... Tyson or Spinks? ... Lewis or Tyson? ... Schmeling or Walker? ... Dempsey or Carpentier? ... Klitschko or Povetkin? ... Tunney or Gibbons? ... Frazier or Foster? ... Foster or Tiger? ... Archie Moore or Bobo Olsen? ... Donaire or Darchinyan? ... Alvarez or Cotto?

I've seen a dog kill a cat... I've never seen a cat kill a dog... Lions are cats... They would kill wild dogs based on their size and strength... In the animal kingdom the big prey on the small... birds eat insects... Cats eat birds... big fish eat little fish... Hugo wrote fiction and most readers are small... They identify more with David than Goliath... Biblical myths and fairly tales make the little guy the hero.. Jack and the Beanstalk.. Tarzan vs Ape.. Who roots for Goliath? Other Goliaths.

Nowadays strength training is a priority and most all top boxers have strength trainers because it's effective.

[HomicideHenry]

You cannot, and will not, convince me that muscles and power are the deciding factors in fights Kalan. Otherwise Primo Carnera never would have lost, and neither would Mike Weaver and Jumbo Cummings.

What's a fairytale, in boxing & MMA or any other combat sport, is the idea that strength is on EQUAL footing with speed, technique, precision, timing, and skills.

Mind you, a low IQ fighter with alot of strength can make up alot (but not all) of the difference. However, without a strategic mind, and cardiovascular conditioning, and skills overall such individuals will come up short. That's why men like Earnie Shavers were well respected for their power, but they couldn't get passed the "next hump".

Now, if you have a guy with alot of strength with a high IQ for fighting, that's problematic sure... But... Even those guys will get beaten by the mentally sharp, quick witted, faster man more times than not. Foreman is a prime example of that in his prime, as well as in his comeback.

And if you don't like that example, then look at someone like Duran or Leonard, overcoming strength and size against the likes of Iran Barkley, Marvin Hagler, etc.

[oogiebe]

I won't favour him against anybody of them, but he could have troubled them all for sure.

I agree 100%. He was a cagey fighter with some pop, but not enough to win v. any of them in their prime. Best shot?...Charles.