Jaclem wrote:to give the stumble bum his due,Marciano was knocked down just twice....once by a solid left hook from Walcott in Marciano's first title fight and second in is last one by a terrific right hand from Archie Moore..and he got right back up both times.
Don't know if he was wobbled or not....the way he lurched around the ring made it hard to tell. But, in the first Charles fight, he came roaring out in his usual style and Charles stood his ground and Marciano stopped and got a little more cautious. Years later he said he never thought he could reeally be hurt in the ring until the fight with Ezzard.
Oh, really? That is odd, because one of the first things Marciano said after the Charles fight was that Charles didn't sting him like Walcott did.
As for that list, I would say he COULD beat any of them, as in fact he COULD beat anyone, but on the subject of whether I think he WOULD:
1) even odds
2) No
3) No
4) Yes
5) Yes
Rocky's style was tailor-made for Foreman, and although I give him a better chance and would expect him to do better against Foreman than Frazier, I would still expect Marciano to be TKO'd in the first five rounds against Big George.
Liston presents a similar bad style match-up, but Liston's less aggressive style and lack of intangibles gives Marciano a very strong chance at wearing him down and winning late.
Marciano actually has a very good style to trouble Ali, as Ali always struggled with the small, busy swarmer types, but on the other hand, Ali's height and reach along with his ring generalship would be a serious problem for Marciano, with his lack of balance, and I think this would be the fight where Rocky's tendency to cut would finally catch up with him.
A young Mike Tyson is one of the most overrated fighters of all time. People think of him as the second coming of King Kong on steroids. On the other hand, Marciano is commonly pictured(as by my friend in the above post) as a bumbling idiot who blocked punches with his face and only won because his opponents were a collection of hundred-year-old midgets who'd escaped from the circus. Both these perceptions are badly inaccurate.
Tyson has always been a badly overrated fighter. Notice how virtually all his losses were fights in which virtually everyone mopcked the very idea of him losing? This is because the aura, the public image that Tyson has acquired from his early days, has grown into mythic proportions, to the point where people think of a young Mike Tyson as an unstoppable monster from Hell. The truth is that Tyson was the style of fighter who looks very impressive winning and is always very overrated, as is often proven by results.
For instance, Jack Dempsey follows this mould. Note that I consider Dempsey a great champion and one of the top 10 heavyweights of all time. However, Dempsey was overrated in his time, much like Tyson. Experts saw him give fantastic, dominating performances against men who made him look like a pip squeak, and Dempsey developed an aura, a public image, that made experts and fans overrate his ability in virtually every subsequent match. Bill Brennan wasn't supposed to have a chance, but he had Dempsey in serious trouble in the second round and lasted all the way to the 12th in a very even match before Dempsey finally ended matters. Luis Firpo was supposed to be a walk-over for Dempsey, but Dempsey found himself knocked clear out of the ring and only managed to win by the skin of his teeth. Years later, even when it should have been a dead-ringer for an upset when Dempsey had been inactive for three years, the experts
still said he was going to just blow through Tunney, no problem, and yet again it turned out to the opposite.
Even right now, Manny Pacquiao pulled off a spectacular win over Marco Antonio Barrera and was almost immediately annointed the next legend by the press, but in subsequent fights he has proven very much only to be on the same level with the other top fighters in his weight-class- it's just that when
he wins, he looks like an all-powerful destroyer in the process, whereas Barrera and Morales usually just soundly dispatch their opponents in workmanlike fashion.
Fighters with Mike Tyson's fighting style are constantly overestimated off their most impressive performances. It is the opposite for a fighter like Marciano, though. Rocky looked clumsy, awkward, and inaccurate in the ring. Throughout his career, experts and fans continually underestimated his ability in fight after fight.
Marciano was supposed to be cannonfodder against Bobby Quinn and Eddie Ross, two far-more-experiened and more polished prospects he fought in his first five professional bouts. Those guys were supposed to polish him off in a couple rounds, but things turned out just the opposite. Throughout much of his early career, critics gave poor reviews of Marciano- Don Dunphy saw him fight once and decided he was nothing more than a good journeyman. Rex Layne was supposed to beat Marciano, then Joe Louis was supposed to beat Marciano. Marciano had to prove himself time and time again before the experts would accept that he was actually a top heavyweight.
This is not due to ability, but to the way Marciano
looked in the ring. He was not always devastating, due to his cruder technique, short arms, and lack of balance. He didn't just tear people to pieces the way Tyson did. But the fact is, his style was, in truth, more effective in the long run. Marciano had attributes you couldn't look at and assess from ringside the way you could with someone's handspeed or head movement or footwork. Marciano's missed punches looked ugly- they made people think he was just a clutz, but in truth, they served a very important purpose.
By simply throwing in high volumes with real knockout power behind virtually every punch, Marciano made up for his inaccuracy and lesser technique. It looked ugly, but it worked like a charm. That's the way he was in virtually every department.
Marciano was also, in fact, a difficult fighter to hit cleanly. If anyone is about to laugh at me, I suggest you go back and watch film of his fights again, but look more carefully this time. No, he doesn't bob and weave all that much, and he doesn't dance around the ring, but he has a subtle and effective defense all the same. His chin was always well tucked down and difficult to get at, his crouching stance made him hard to get at with body shots or most other forms of effective punching, and the angle he comes in at, along with the way he holds his right glove, actually does a very effective job of offsetting opponents' jabs and causing them to miss or glance off harmlessly.
These are some quotes from the 2001 interviews done by Russell Sullivan with Marciano's former opponents:
After the Marciano rematch in 1953, LaStarza was asked in what area Marciano had most improved since their first fight, and he responded, "In defense. It was harder to get at him.
Keene Simmons, an eighth-round knockout victim of Marciano, and a frequent sparring partner of his, said "He fools you. When you look at him from outside the ring, he seems easy to hit, but if you're in the ring with him, you find this isn't the case.
Angelo Dundee(not a former opponent, though, of course
) said of Marciano, "Rocky was a very deceiving guy. He[Goldman] taught Rocky so well that he used to slip on punches. He was not that easy to hit."
Now, I'm telling you, it is obvious from results in both Tyson and Marciano's actual careers that Tyson was a very overrated fighter and Marciano a very underrated one. I believe that carries over here. A lot of people probably envision Tyson just tearing Marciano to shreds in the first round and leaving him in a twitching heap on the canvas.
I imagine Marciano would probably be behind at the halfway point of the fight, but this fight would not be a slaughter. Tyson was not a slick boxer like a Walcott or Charles- he would actually have a harder time getting at Marciano, and he would also not be able to outpoint him consistently the way they would, because Tyson would be right there in the trenches with Rocky, where both men would be in their element. This would be a competitive fight from the onset, probably with Tyson ahead early, and as it progressed, Marciano would gradually take over as Tyson tired and grew discouraged, while if anything Marciano simply got stronger and stronger. Marciano would stop him around the 10th round.
Now, after that huge rant, going on to Marciano against Lewis, I'll start by saying that the size difference would not be nearly the factor in this fight that many probably believe it would be. Marciano's entire style was built around overcoming size disadvantages and getting in close where his short arms would be an advantage. Of course Lewis is a FAR more extreme case than any of Marciano's other opponents, but it is the same element stylistically.
Fighters stylistically similar to Marciano, such as Harry Greb, Jack Dempsey, and Mickey Walker(yes, he lost to Schmeling, but he also drew with Jack Sharkey and beat big heavyweight contender Bearcat, who was more than 6" taller and over 40 pounds heavier than him, and this guy was a former welterweight) have historically had immense success against much bigger men. That is where Marciano's style came from- it is made for smaller, shorter-armed men to use against bigger foes.
In my opinion, a Lewis blow-out, which is, again, probably a common pick here, is not a likely outcome. I highly doubt Lewis would be aggressive against an opponent like Marciano. Lewis would probably stay back and look to establish the jab from the outside, then tie Marciano up when he got in close. This style would work for a few boring rounds, but the fact is, Lewis has always huffed and puffed down the stretch, even in 12-rounders, and he would have to keep up an unusually fast pace against Marciano, who would take Lewis far out of his comfort zone, that being gradually picking off other big men with far less skill than himself from long range.
Lewis would tire down the stretch and Marciano would catch him and put him down for good. You'll notice Marciano fights generally follow a similar pattern to this one, as Marciano often lost the early rounds against opponents with physical or skill advantages over himself, but his power, durability, workrate, stamina, and heart always came through for him down the stretch as his opponents faded.
So in the end, I predict a 2-2-1 record for Marciano against these five fighters.