HomicideHenry wrote:When people think of Marciano...
I agree with maybe more than half of your post.
Some people badly overrate Marciano. The idea that he was 49-0 and that this means he was unbeatable is, as you say, is coming from people living in a fantasy realm. Chavez went to 90-0-1 before losing his first fight. He should have lost to Whitaker, and maybe Taylor, but even then he’s 88-0 or 69-0. His level of opposition wasn’t too far off from Marciano’s either, if not better. And I would hardly call Chavez unbeatable, even with that record, and as great as he was.
On the other hand I agree, Marciano would have been no easy fight for most Heavyweights. I think Louis beats him, but it would have been one of Louis’ tougher fights. Marciano could arguably beat most of the other Heavyweight champions who came before him, and he beats Patterson, Johannoson, probably Norton, Moorer, maybe some of today’s belt holders… I think that is something most would agree on.
I think you do make light of the condition of Marciano’s opponents. You say that Charles was only two years older than Marciano, but age doesn't matter so much. Some fighters are shot in their 20's, some are strong going into their 40’s. I won’t say that Charles was shot when he fought Marciano, but I think he may have been going downhill, and I think Rocky had more left at that time. It’s also important to note that Charles was not a natural Heavyweight. He started out as a Middleweight, fought at Light Heavyweight but couldn't get a title shot, then moved up to Heavyweight. Now, though Charles is an exceptional Light Heavyweight, I think some might say the best Light Heavyweight ever, and did become Heavyweight champion… the fact that he was a natural Light Heavyweight does hurt him as a Marciano opponent. Not that Light Heavyweights have never been successful at Heavyweight, and Charles certainly was, but it is disadvantage. A lot of Light Heavyweights have gotten beaten after moving up, as we all know.
Anyway, my overriding point is this; what bothers me about Marciano’s fights with Charles… from Marciano’s perspective… is not that he fought Charles, but that he went life and death with Charles twice. Was Charles a worthy opponent? Of course, he’s one of the P4P greatest fighters ever, maybe top 10-15. But he almost beat Marciano twice, and I find it hard to picture Frazier almost losing to Charles twice. I find it hard to picture Ali almost losing to Charles. I find it hard to picture Lewis or even prime Tyson almost losing to Charles. And I find it hard to picture a prime Joe Louis almost losing to Charles, though obviously an older, rusty Louis got beat by him.
And then there’s Louis. Again, it’s fair to point out that Louis had beaten some solid contenders. But all that makes Louis is jut that; a contender. He was no longer a top 2, top 10, top 20 or probably top 30 Heavyweight… he was an old man trying to pay off his taxes who still had enough to beat the Savold’s of the world. I don’t think anyone questions that Marciano could beat contenders, which is what that version of Louis was. The question is how could he have done against other great Heavyweights at their best. Judging by that fight, I don’t see that he beats prime Louis. People say Louis had problems with swarmer’s, but he did pretty good at 38 against a prime Marciano. And again, this is how I look at it. I don’t say that Rocky would not beat the best Heavyweights because all he did was fight guys like an old Joe Louis’, but I
would say that Rocky would not beat a lot of the great Heavyweights because an old Louis gave Rocky a tough enough fight. So if that’s the case, how would a prime Louis have done? I don’t see prime Louis losing.
Then there’s Walcott, Rocky’s best opponent. Now, I agree with you that Walcott was one of these fighters who are great into old age. And Walcott on that night put on one of his great performances. But, I don’t think it should be dismissed that Walcott was the oldest Heavyweight champion of all time to that point, and as other posters have said here, one might make the case that a younger Walcott might have won. And it’s not like Walcott hadn’t been beaten, or knocked out before. Not that Waclott had a bad chin, but if you were a big enough puncher you could put him down. Charles knocked him down, and Charles wasn't a huge puncher. I think one could make the case that an Ali, or a Holyfield, or a Foreman, or maybe even a Frazier or a Holmes even might take the shot that Rocky landed on Walcott. They might go down, but I think they
could get up from it. I don't think it's by any means beyond possibility. But the point being; Walcott out boxed Marciano badly, knocked him down, busted up his face, but Marciano was able to come back because he was able to knock Walcott out. There’s no guarantee that that punch knocks out greater, bigger and more solid chinned Heavyweights. And that’s the difference to me. Not that Marciano couldn’t beat the Walcott-level Heavyweights, not that Marciano isn’t a top 10 Heavyweight, but when it comes down to it his ability to pull off miracles, that might not work against the best of the best. Baldomir can pull off an upset of the year against the Judah’s and can beat up the Gatti’s, but then he fights Mayweather and it’s a shut out. I’m not suggesting that the best of the best would have an easy time with Marciano, but they can out box him like Walcott did and have the bit extra it takes to survive Marciano’s rallies, his Hail Mary shots, and whatever it was that allowed Rocky on a few occasions to 'pull victory out of the jaws of defeat.'
And then there’s my other point; would other fighters have gotten beaten so badly by Walcott? Louis should have lost to Walcott the first time, and may have been behind before the knock out in the second fight… but Louis was also slipping by then. But would Liston have been so badly out boxed by that Walcott? Would Ali be behind against that Walcott? Holmes? Would that Walcott have survived to the 13th round against Lewis or Foreman or maybe Tyson at his best? Again, it’s not that Rocky can’t beat these old fighters or these smaller fighters, it’s that he goes life and death with them. Other all time greats Heavyweights, at their best, would not IMO, or at least wouldn't be so badly out classed for so many rounds.
As for Archie Moore, again, if you want to say Archie Moore was solid as a Heavyweight contender, I can’t disagree. He beat a lot of Heavyweight contenders. But he did knock Rocky down. People will argue until they’re blue in the face that Ali somehow had a bad chin because as a 21 year old at 18-0 he was knocked down by Heavyweight Henry Cooper… but Marciano at his best, as a champion, at 48-0, got knocked down by a Light Heavyweight, even if Moore was the greatest Light Heavyweight champion ever, and Marciano (from what I remember, I might be wrong about this) was on the run for the remainder of the round. Would Ali have gone down from that shot? Would Frazier? Would Holyfield? Foster didn’t make a dent in Ali or Frazier. Spinks didn’t make a dent in Holmes or Tyson. They were big punching Light Heavyweight champions. Again, I don’t think it's so much terrible that Marciano fought guys like Archie Moore, or even that Archie Moore is one of his best opponents. But Marciano always showed something... something always happened where he showed he could be beaten, but he never had
great opposition, even if he didn’t have particularly bad opposition.
As for LaStarza… good Heavyweight fighter. But is he better than Ernie Terrell? Is he better than Jerry Quarry? Is he better than Ray Mercer? Is he better than Tim Witherspoon? I doubt it. Those were the kind of contenders that other champions had to fight. Rocky hardly had it tough in that sense.
As for who could beat Marciano’s opponents, well again, if you’re talking Baer or Carnera than maybe not, but the great Heavyweights certainly would. Patterson may not have beaten better fighters as champion, but he beat some decent fighters after he lost his title, and he could certainly beat the opponents Rocky had in front of him; look what he did to Moore. And this is why I believe Marciano’s 49-0 is overrated; I don't believe that Ali or Louis or Foreman or Frazier wouldn’t be undefeated in that era.I think they probably would be, barring some unforeseen upset, and they would beat Marciano’s opponents easier than Rocky did. Rocky would not be undefeated in Frazier’s era or Holyfield’s era. I don’t think this a question of perceptions, I think that this is easy to see. Rocky was undefeated in a subpar era. The weaker Heavyweight champions might not have beaten his opposition, but the better Heavyweight champions probably would have, and the better ones would have probably done it easier.
You compare him to Holyfield and Lewis. Well, Holyfield won almost every round against old Holmes and old Foreman. Marciano didn’t do that with Walcott or Charles. He was more dominant against Louis, I suppose. I don’t know how dominant Rocky would have been with that version of Foreman or that version of Holmes, even if they were older. They would have won more rounds against him than they did against Holyfield, I think. At best Rocky stops Holmes late, but not Foreman. And how would Rocky do against the Bowe that Holyfield fought? And I don’t know if Rocky even beats the Holyfield who fought Lewis, and he wouldn’t dominate Tyson as easily as Lewis did. I don’t even know if Rocky could beat Bitschko, really, though I suppose he’d have a good chance.
As for how he would do against the best. I’m sure he would have a good shot with Liston, but I’m not sure you can say that because Liston quit against Ali that he would quit against Marciano. Duran quit against Leonard but he didn’t quit against tough-as-hell Middleweights like Hagler and Barkley. Just because you quit in one tough situation doesn’t necessitate that you’ll do it again in a totally different situation. Leonard was slick and hard to hit. Hagler and Barkley were bigger, stronger, hit harder… but they were in front of Duran, they were there to be hit. So would Marciano be for Liston. I don’t know that Liston would back down from that kind of fight. He didn’t back down against Cleveland Williams. Liston would be a bigger than Walcott or Louis, much longer reach, would hit harder, would take a punch better. Do I rule out Rocky beating Liston? No, not really. But I would favor Liston.
I think Frazier was susceptible in the early rounds, I wonder how he would have handled Rocky’s power early. But if Frazier makes it to the 5th, 6th, 7th rounds, how does Rocky beat him? Frazier’s bigger, Frazier’s faster, Frazier throws as much or more. Frazier to me is a smarter fighter. And Frazier did more than throw a left hook, he was a great body puncher, possibly better than Rocky. Rocky had a lot of facial damage against Walcott and Charles, maybe Frazier might stop him on facial damage like he did to Quarry. I think Frazier also stopped Chuvalo on facial damage, though I haven’t seen that fight. Point being, it’s easy to say that all Frazier had was a left hook, but fighters who got in the ring with Frazier learned awful quick that Frazier’s left hook, though quite a force itself, was not all Joe had. I don’t know that just because, on paper, Rocky is a two fisted puncher and Joe isn’t that this necessitates that Rocky beats Frazier… it’s an advantage, but I think there’s more to it than that. I think if Frazier can make it past 5 rounds and if he can do it without getting knocked down several times, which could hurt him on the cards in what would likely be a close fight, I think he could beat Rocky.
As for Frazier ranking Louis and Marciano over Ali, that really doesn’t mean… shit. I mean, Basilio would probably rate a whole bunch of fighters over Ray Robinson just because he doesn’t like him, I wouldn’t buy his ranking of Robinson anymore than I would Frazier’s ranking of Ali.
I don’t see Marciano beating Foreman either.
I don’t think it’s ridiculous to assume that Ali could bust up Marciano’s face, it's certainly possible. You mention the Chuvalo fight; Chuvalo gave Ali a tough fight when Ali was in his “prime” though Ali was still really only 24 years old fighting the first 15 rounder of his career. I'm not sure how seriously Ali took Chuvalo that he even let Chuvalo hit him in the body at one point. The ref, a Canadian of course, was letting Chuvalo throw as many low blows as he wanted, by his own admission. Ali still won lopsidedly. There’s really no basis in my mind for saying Marciano beats a prime Ali. People throw the first Frazier fight around left and right. Ali won the first 6 rounds of that fight when he hit a wall and Frazier took over. If you want to say that an active Marciano beats Ali with Ali coming off a three year layoff, then you can say that. If you want to say that Marciano beats an active Ali then I would disagree. I hear that a lot, btw, that because Ali beat Quarry and Bonavena then he should have been good enough to beat Frazier. That’s nonsense to me. Ali fought a three rounder with Quarry, then put on the worst performance of his career to that point against Bonavena, which people forget because of the big knock out in the 15th. There’s no way, coming off that sloppy, rusty performance against Bonavena that Ali was in shape to fight Frazier. Ali hadn’t even been back for 6 months and only fought Frazier because there was the possibility that he would be going to jail that summer, and he had to rush the fight. He should have waited a year to fight Frazier. Look at Robinson, he came back from a two year layoff and lost to Ralf Tiger Jones, a fighter with over 10 losses, yet Ali after a 3 and a half year layoff is supposed to come back and beat Joe Frazier with two tune ups? Robinson needed like 6 tune ups just to get ready for Bobo Olson, who he had beaten twice already. Without the layoff Ali would have beaten Frazier the first time. Ali also won the rematches, which gets lost when people want to make Ali look bad. People always talk about how tough Marciano was, how many fights did he have that were tougher than Manila? The heat, the amount of punches thrown and taken, all of that; he never had it. His toughest fights were with great fighters past their best who didn’t have great chins to begin with. Ezzard Charles, as great as he was, was knocked out plenty of times… so was Archie Moore… and at lower weight classes... how many times was Ali knocked out?
Fact is Ali was a fine inside fighter, he beat Frazier that way. Frazier hit Ali with plenty of body shots and it didn’t stop him from dancing around in the 13th and 14th rounds. I know the percpetion people have is that Frazier was no good in Manila, but I tend to disagree. Frazier blasted Ali with all kinds of left hooks and it didn’t stop him. And that’s another thing, Ali wasn’t really open to the right hand, he was open to the left hook. All his legit knock downs were on left hooks. Frazier had a better left hook than Marciano did. Frazier knew how to counter Ali’s uppercut with a left hook. Even if Marciano did that, his left hook wouldn’t hurt Ali as badly as Frazier’s did. So to me that nullifies the whole "two fisted" argument. Ali wasn’t as easy to hit with the right hand. And even then, Marciano isn’t going to hit Ali, or Holmes, as hard with the right hand as Shavers did, and Shavers couldn’t stop them with one punch. And Ali was 35 years old when he fought Shavers, not in his prime.
And as for saying that Ali is Walcott and Charles combined, plus speed but without a punch… I disagree there. First of all Walcott was
a lot bigger than Marciano, and that helped him in that fight. Well, Ali is three inches taller than Walcott. Walcott weighed 196 for that fight, Ali weighs up to 20 pounds more at his best. Walcott had a 74” reach, Ali had an 80” reach. You’re saying that won’t make a difference? Or that Walcott hit harder than Ali? How is that? Ali knocked out Bonavena, he knocked out Lyle, he stunned Liston and Foreman plenty of times… Walcott would do that? Walcott is a better inside fighter than Ali? Did Walcott stop a Frazier type fighter in an inside fight? There’s no way Ezzard Charles hit harder than Ali. What about the thing Ali had that Walcott and Charles didn’t have; a top 2-3 all time great chin among Heavyweight champions? Ali stood up to plenty of shots from Frazier that would have knocked out Charles or Walcott. And therein lies the difference to me.
You classify Ali-Marciano, as many people do, as skills against wills. Marciano is tougher than Ali? Maybe, not much more than people would like to think. Did Marciano ever go a fight with a fractured then broken jaw like Ali did against a fighter of Norton’s caliber? Fact is Ali was about as tough as most of these touted 30’s, 40’s, 50’s fighters. He fought in more of Ring Magazine’s “Fight(s) of the Year” than any other fighter, even more than Basilio did (and yet sir psycho says Ali was somehow boring). To me, if you want to give Marciano credit based on what he did against his okay level of opposition, then you should give Ali a bit more credit for fighting the level of opposition he did, against better fighters. Ali fought natural Heavyweights, in their primes, at their best. Marciano is tough-as-hell because he went life and death with Charles, Tyson is the second coming of Christ because he knocked out Spinks, and yet Ali knocked out Foster and dropped him 7 times and people count it as a subpar win. How does that work?
Anyway, I agree Ali beats Marciano in a tough fight… but I don’t agree with your analysis of certain things. I think if Rocky needs to be given more credit, and in some ways he should, than perhaps Ali should be given some more credit too.
Anyway, then you talk about Marciano’s top 10 rating, and here I also agree, Marciano is top 10 at Heavyweight all time. I rank him ahead of the Liston’s, Patterson’s, Tyson’s, Dempsey’s, Burns’, Baer’s, Braddock’s, Walcott’s etc. He’s without question one of the greatest of all time. And even when comparing him to other all time great Heavyweights and how he would do against them, he is at a disadvantage because he really was more of a Cruiserweight. How would Marciano do against history’s Cruiserweights? Would anyone, except maybe Holyfield, who was still pretty young when he was at Cruiserweight, beat Marciano? Not in my mind. I wouldn’t be surprised if Marciano beat every Cruiserweight belt holder in boxing history... lol
So I guess all and all I halfway agree with you, Rocky should be given more credit by some people, but others (like Lou Duva) need to relax with the notion that because Marciano went undefeated in that era that he was somehow the best ever at Heavyweight or even, god help us, P4P. He was a great fighter, better than most, who could give most anybody a tough fight.
