BoxRec

lol people have said throughout that its about size and ability, you are being obtuse and repeatedly misrepresenting the points other ppl are making, while at the same time spouting utter nonsense , like how 10 inch taller, 15 inch more reach, 40 pound heavier wilder has regularly been facing guys who have even more size then that over him

in fact, when people like tuan jim mention stuff like the freakishly fast roy jones vs ruiz, totally disregarding the style and attribute differences in that compared to wilder-marciano, they are the ones being simpletons who overlook the specific abilites at play

theres just such an urge among ppl like alp to whine about how the otherside only cares about size, when in fact the people arguing for wilder over marciano have over and over again mentioned size, style, and ability.

Ambling Alp II wrote: ↑19 Nov 2018, 11:49 I feel like we have the same argument over and over. Pretty much goes like this:

New Fans - "Bigger heavyweights are better."

Older Fans - "It's a lot more than size. It matters what you can actually do."

Newer fans - "Nope. Height, weight, and reach is what matters."

Older fans - "There are many examples throughout the years where the smaller man won."

New fans -"Yes but the big fighters in the old days were not as good as the big fighters in recent times."
(Recent times being when they started to get interested in boxing.)

Suddenly, it's no longer about size, it about ability. And they assume the ability of the recent big guys is superior to the bigger guys. Apparently this is based on the phenomenal footwork and the hand speed that we have seen in the heavyweight division in the last few years.

That is pretty much how it goes.
Ultimately, This really is not about size. It's more about people who don't care about what happened before they got interested in the sport. Boxing magically got much better exactly when they became a fan.

Of course nobody is going to admit this, but it's obviously the truth.

I don’t agree, I’ve been on this site since 2002 and a fan a lot longer than that, nothing to do with being a new fan. Just watch Marciano without the rose tinted glasses. He wasn’t a one man demolition squad. He was good at what he done but he often struggled and didn’t flatten everyone with one punch like people seem to think he done. Out of the two Wikders power is far more impressive. Watch him being pushed around by a chubby Don Cockell. To then argue his size is irrelevant when he never beat anyone close to Wilders size,’speed and power is a bit silly. Impossible to win, no. Unlikely, yes.

Big heavyweights have been dominating the division since the mid 1990s in a way they never did in prior eras. That by itself is pretty compelling evidence of improvement putting aside video which also points to an improvement.

In many prior eras giant heavyweights never even cracked the top 10, these are guys over 6'4 who managed to crack the top 10.

1910s
Jess Willard
Fred Fulton

1920s
Jess Willard
Fred Fulton

1930s
Jack Trammell
Primo Carnera

1940s
Buddy Baer

1950s
none

1960s
Ernie Terrell

1970s
none

1980s
Gerry Cooney

As you can see they had pretty limited success prior to the 1990s

"Wilder has size, style and ability"....that's hilarious....your only 33% accurate with that statement...

Well, at least we don't hear about the weight as mcuh lately. Now it's the height. Somehow this is suddenly a huge advantage that can't be overcome.
First of all, there are many guys 6$ or taller not listed. Carl Morris, Abe Simon, Joe Bugner, Tony Tucker, Tyrell Biggs, Carl Williams. Sometimes, Foreman, Holmes, and douglas were listed at 6$. Of course there many at 6'3, but I guess they must of all sucked if they are under the magical 6'4 mark.

Love the assumption that because fighters are often taller in recent times (when a person became interested in the sport, they must be better. Never occurs to anyone that maybe there were more really good "shorter fighters than there happens to be now?

What is going on? Now Marciano wasn't that big of a puncher? (after all Cockell last too long.) Ali has no chance with Joshua?
How about we talk about we talk about things that actually matter? You know, power, hand speed, footwork, defense, toughness, smarts, etc? Enough of the frikkin tape measure.

Morris, Simon, Bugner, etc were not over 6'4 so they wouldn't qualify by the criteria I set.

George Foreman was the first modern heavyweight in terms of size equalling the athleticism--- comparable in size to an NFL full back, he crushed everybody.

Even in his come back, averaging 260 pounds, his decreased athleticism wasn't much of a factor. The size and wisdom of being a veteran carried him to victory over more athletic, smaller, faster men.

So he's something of a blue print. That as long as a heavyweight of size has athleticism, and a high ring IQ that heavyweight regardless of his age is damned difficult to defeat.

A heavyweight of size and athleticism, without the ring smarts--- is dangerous, but is also vulnerable. Many have tried, and many have failed. Most were hype. And some, like Cooney & Grant, were moved up the ladder too quickly.

A guy like Wilder--- is still an unknown property. He's got the size and athleticism, and he's Formanesque with the 40-0-0 record. However, as George showed even wrecking machines can be out-boxed and out-thought.

In the case of one wrecking machine against another wrecking machine, you can't really argue against physics. Foreman annihilated Frazier twice. I'd suspect a Wilder would probably do the same to a Marciano. The bobbing and weaving style is suicide against large power punchers who can generate tremendous leverage.

Even the great Evander Holyfield, 6'2" and 210 pounds, lost badly to Lennox Lewis (twice) and Riddick Bowe (twice). Both of those men were 6'5" and 230 pounds. Only Holyfield's ring IQ and iron jaw and foot movement kept him "alive" in those fights. A more limited man coming straight forward, wouldn't last four rounds.

It's not a dismissal of Marciano. Everyone knows he's my favorite heavyweight of all-time. However, there comes a time when we have to be realistic and put down the colored glasses. Marciano would have given many icons a helluva fight. If he were around today we'd be chanting, "Rocky! Rocky! Rocky!", instead of Alexander Usyk.

But he'd of had nowhere to go but down and out against the likes of Bowe, Lewis, The Klitschko's and most likely Wilder, Fury and Joshua--- as much as that pains me to say. Wilder would be probably pissing blood after the fact, or have broken ribs, but he'd drop and stop Marciano.

HomicideHenry wrote: ↑19 Nov 2018, 18:34
It's not a dismissal of Marciano. Everyone knows he's my favorite heavyweight of all-time. However, there comes a time when we have to be realistic and put down the colored glasses. Marciano would have given many icons a helluva fight. If he were around today we'd be chanting, "Rocky! Rocky! Rocky!", instead of Alexander Usyk.

But he'd of had nowhere to go but down and out against the likes of Bowe, Lewis, The Klitschko's and most likely Wilder, Fury and Joshua--- as much as that pains me to say. Wilder would be probably pissing blood after the fact, or have broken ribs, but he'd drop and stop Marciano.

Ditto. I'm a huge fan of Marciano, he was the first fighter that got me hooked on boxing. Agree with all of that.

Comparing Wilder with Foreman is an absolute joke...

Duran1970 wrote: ↑19 Nov 2018, 19:35 Comparing Wilder with Foreman is an absolute joke...

Formanesque

Was the operative word. Mind you, even in George's prime he was not held favorably by critics and historian's. Context is everything. When Foreman retired in '77 he was considered a deeply flawed, wild, sloppy heavyweight who was just a clone of Sonny Liston.

That sounds very similar to a guy named Deontay Wilder. The Alabaman is large, powerful, reckless, etc--- some say unproven, which was a knock against Foreman for most of his career.

No, Wilder hasn't (yet) achieved the kind of prominence and status of Foreman. No, Wilder has (yet) to have that career defining fight. But I do think in many ways it's comparable.

Does the evidence point to fighters around Marciano's size being less talented when heavyweights started getting bigger? There seems to be plenty of talent at cruiserweight and light heavyweight. At cruiserweight from 2000 to present we have has Tomasz Adamek, David Haye, Grigory Drozd, Krzysztof Wlodarczyk, Steve Cunningham, Yoan Pablo Hernandez, Denis Lebedev, Krzysztof Glowacki, Maris Briedis, etc. Cruiserweight in recent years has generally been considered a pretty strong division.

Cojimar 1946 wrote: ↑20 Nov 2018, 02:58 Does the evidence point to fighters around Marciano's size being less talented when heavyweights started getting bigger? There seems to be plenty of talent at cruiserweight and light heavyweight. At cruiserweight from 2000 to present we have has Tomasz Adamek, David Haye, Grigory Drozd, Krzysztof Wlodarczyk, Steve Cunningham, Yoan Pablo Hernandez, Denis Lebedev, Krzysztof Glowacki, Maris Briedis, etc. Cruiserweight in recent years has generally been considered a pretty strong division.

I listed a load of CWs earlier in this thread, there have been plenty over the years but very few had any real success in the HW division. This proves that size coupled with skill/power is generally too much for them. The only ones who had success not only had significant height, reach and weight advantages over Marciano but they had skill sets that Marciano didn't possess, namely speed and/or decent boxing ability.

Totally pointless argument this. It will never happen....just a platform to argue. I've learnt absolutely nothing here.

HomicideHenry wrote: ↑19 Nov 2018, 19:41

Duran1970 wrote: ↑19 Nov 2018, 19:35 Comparing Wilder with Foreman is an absolute joke...

Mind you, even in George's prime he was not held favorably by critics and historian's. Context is everything. When Foreman retired in '77 he was considered a deeply flawed, wild, sloppy heavyweight who was just a clone of Sonny Liston.

That sounds very similar to a guy named Deontay Wilder. The Alabaman is large, powerful, reckless, etc--- some say unproven, which was a knock against Foreman for most of his career.

Yes if you look at Foreman's record up to fighting Frazier in his 37th fight it was pretty poor. Half were under 200lbs and a lot had pretty poor records, Vic Scott (1-2), Joe Gordwin (1-14-1), Clarence Boone (3-25-2) and Ollie Wilson (21-39) as examples.

Cojimar 1946 wrote: ↑19 Nov 2018, 18:10 Morris, Simon, Bugner, etc were not over 6'4 so they wouldn't qualify by the criteria I set.

Oh I am sorry. I didn't read your words of wisdom as carefully as I normally do. I was thinking 6" 4 was the magical height when a fighter becomes great. but it's actually over 6"4. Good to know.

Controversial wrote: ↑20 Nov 2018, 06:08

HomicideHenry wrote: ↑19 Nov 2018, 19:41

Duran1970 wrote: ↑19 Nov 2018, 19:35 Comparing Wilder with Foreman is an absolute joke...

Mind you, even in George's prime he was not held favorably by critics and historian's. Context is everything. When Foreman retired in '77 he was considered a deeply flawed, wild, sloppy heavyweight who was just a clone of Sonny Liston.

That sounds very similar to a guy named Deontay Wilder. The Alabaman is large, powerful, reckless, etc--- some say unproven, which was a knock against Foreman for most of his career.

Yes if you look at Foreman's record up to fighting Frazier in his 37th fight it was pretty poor. Half were under 200lbs and a lot had pretty poor records, Vic Scott (1-2), Joe Gordwin (1-14-1), Clarence Boone (3-25-2) and Ollie Wilson (21-39) as examples.

Yes and if they are under the magical 200 pound mark they must not be any good.
Wait a minute, I thought we were dropping the weight ing and only talking about height?

Can we count the Frazier fight? How about the Norton fight? Or are we doing the thing where we don't count a fighter's biggest wins?
Of course you can find opinions ripping or praising anyone. In Foreman's prime most experts expected him to beat Ali. Overall, he was pretty highly regarded.

Ambling Alp II wrote: ↑20 Nov 2018, 11:48

Controversial wrote: ↑20 Nov 2018, 06:08

HomicideHenry wrote: ↑19 Nov 2018, 19:41

Mind you, even in George's prime he was not held favorably by critics and historian's. Context is everything. When Foreman retired in '77 he was considered a deeply flawed, wild, sloppy heavyweight who was just a clone of Sonny Liston.

That sounds very similar to a guy named Deontay Wilder. The Alabaman is large, powerful, reckless, etc--- some say unproven, which was a knock against Foreman for most of his career.

Yes if you look at Foreman's record up to fighting Frazier in his 37th fight it was pretty poor. Half were under 200lbs and a lot had pretty poor records, Vic Scott (1-2), Joe Gordwin (1-14-1), Clarence Boone (3-25-2) and Ollie Wilson (21-39) as examples.

Yes and if they are under the magical 200 pound mark they must not be any good.
Wait a minute, I thought we were dropping the weight ing and only talking about height?

Can we count the Frazier fight? How about the Norton fight? Or are we doing the thing where we don't count a fighter's biggest wins?
Of course you can find opinions ripping or praising anyone. In Foreman's prime most experts expected him to beat Ali. Overall, he was pretty highly regarded.

I didn’t say Foreman wasn’t good, I was agreeing that he got similar criticism as Wilder gets, and when you look at Foreman’s record he did have a lot of very average opponents.

The 200lb figure isn’t a magical figure it’s just a reference point that easily shows the difference between who would be a CW today and who wouldn’t., that’s all.

Yes, Foreman got criticism; everyone does.
Just because a guy was under 200 before there was a cruiserweight division, does not automatically mean that the guy would have been a cruiserweight when the cruiserweight division started. This is a concept that some people just don't get.

Ambling Alp II wrote: ↑20 Nov 2018, 14:54 Yes, Foreman got criticism; everyone does.
Just because a guy was under 200 before there was a cruiserweight division, does not automatically mean that the guy would have been a cruiserweight when the cruiserweight division started. This is a concept that some people just don't get.

So would you remove the CW division then and let anyone over 175lbs be classed as a HW? Surely you must agree there is a point when someone just isn’t big enough to compete fairly with a good big HW? Otherwise what’s the point in having any divisions? One thing is for certain if they scrapped them all and everyone fought each other then the little guys wouldn’t do very well.

We should take it on a case by case basis. Some guys under 200 could do it; some could not.
There are numerous examples of guys under 200 who could do it.

Ambling Alp II wrote: ↑20 Nov 2018, 16:49 We should take it on a case by case basis. Some guys under 200 could do it; some could not.
There are numerous examples of guys under 200 who could do it.

Except you have to set the same weight limits for everyone below HW. So what cut off weight would you set and why?

When Junior Heavyweight/Cruiserweight started in the late 70's it was 176-195. Prior to that 176+ was Heavyweight. As Alp pointed out, some small men were capable of fighting & beating the best Heavyweights in the world. Most couldn't.

Tommy Loughran, Mickey Walker, Sam Langford, Tommy Burns, are a couple who spring to mind when having the "David vs Goliath" matches. True, the Heavyweights were smaller in those days--- averaging 200 pounds--- but there were alot of tall/heavy men who they defeated rather handedly.

Walker, the former 147 & 160 champion, defeated guys like Bearcat Wright who was 6'2" and fought as heavy as 230. Walker was outweighed 42 pounds and was 7" shorter, but won a decision.

Tom Heeney, 5'10" and 210, who fought Tunney for the title--- decisioned the Chilean giant Jose Santa who was 6'8" and 250 pounds. Max Baer, 6'2" and 210, kayoed Santa.

Loughran, the former 175 champion, defeated 6'9" Ray Impeltierre three times by decision. Langford, of course, beat Bill Tate who was 6'8" as well as 6'4" (260) George Godfrey--- though he came up short against giants Fred Fulton and Harry Wills.

It takes an extraordinary talent to overcome physical and athletic barriers. No question about that. But generally the guys who achieve it are speed orientated men with high ring IQ's. Walker is the only one of those mentioned who just pulled his way through.

HomicideHenry wrote: ↑20 Nov 2018, 19:13 When Junior Heavyweight/Cruiserweight started in the late 70's it was 176-195. Prior to that 176+ was Heavyweight. As Alp pointed out, some small men were capable of fighting & beating the best Heavyweights in the world. Most couldn't.

Tommy Loughran, Mickey Walker, Sam Langford, Tommy Burns, are a couple who spring to mind when having the "David vs Goliath" matches. True, the Heavyweights were smaller in those days--- averaging 200 pounds--- but there were alot of tall/heavy men who they defeated rather handedly.

Walker, the former 147 & 160 champion, defeated guys like Bearcat Wright who was 6'2" and fought as heavy as 230. Walker was outweighed 42 pounds and was 7" shorter, but won a decision.

Tom Heeney, 5'10" and 210, who fought Tunney for the title--- decisioned the Chilean giant Jose Santa who was 6'8" and 250 pounds. Max Baer, 6'2" and 210, kayoed Santa.

Loughran, the former 175 champion, defeated 6'9" Ray Impeltierre three times by decision. Langford, of course, beat Bill Tate who was 6'8" as well as 6'4" (260) George Godfrey--- though he came up short against giants Fred Fulton and Harry Wills.

It takes an extraordinary talent to overcome physical and athletic barriers. No question about that. But generally the guys who achieve it are speed orientated men with high ring IQ's. Walker is the only one of those mentioned who just pulled his way through.

Sure I know what the limits were and are now, and of course there will always be examples when a smaller guy beat a bigger one. However as you say most had speed or great boxing brains on their side and the big lump wasn't normally that great anyway. Even Charley Burley beat a HW.

I'm just interested where Alp draws the line and why. There is never going to be a magical weight but you need to set a limit at some point and there needs to be a reason why.

The line is difficult to determine. Once upon a time it was thought that all the size a Heavyweight needed to be was 6'3" and 220. Ali was that size, as was Larry Holmes.

But in the passed 40 years men of that size have failed against the 'norm' today--- 6'6", 6'7", 6'8", 6'9" and averaging about 250 pounds--- and maybe the reason that is is because there are not many incredibly skillful men 5'11", 6', 6'1", 6'2", 6'3" anymore hovering around 200-220 pounds.

David Haye, slightly bigger than Holyfield, befuddled the likes of Chisora and Barrett and Ruiz and Harrison and Valuev--- but they were either not much bigger than himself or not really that good or were slow & ponderous.

The same can be said for Tomasz Adamek and James Toney and to a lesser extent Eddie Chambers. Great against the average or fringe contenders and maybe the bottom half of the legitimate top ten--- but they could do absolutely nothing with the Klitschko's.

Part of that is the issue of size and strength, but it's also largely in part because of the athleticism and skills that everyone downplays when it comes to the big men of today. These guys ARE talented and CAN fight. It's not their fault that there's few who can hang.

Besides, we're also talking about the absolute TOP OF THE DIVISION, not the division as a whole. I love guys like Chris Arreola (6'4" 240) but Rocky Marciano is no Brian Minto--- Arreola would lose that fight. It'd be tough AT FIRST but Marciano always found a way inside--- it's more difficult to get inside the guard of a leaner, faster, athletic guy than a bigger, slower, less athletic guy.

But when it comes to the absolute top of the mountain, where you have Fury and Wilder and Joshua and the Klitschko's or even a Lennox Lewis--- I can't see Rocky remotely landing. He'd be like Galento leaping and catching nothing but air and eating a battering ram for his troubles.

I'm not saying it's impossible but it is not really plausible--- I'd say Marciano's chances are somewhere between 10-20% against those guys. His only chance would be to try and literally break the arms of the giants.

Before anyone laughs, it WAS a genuine Marciano tactic to beat on the hands & forearms & elbows & shoulders of his opponents. He literally caused hairline fractures in his opponents arms.

If he could accomplish that inside of four or five rounds--- without getting kayoed or cut up to pieces within that time--- his stock goes up. But even then it's still not an easy assignment.

Given the dramatic increase in success by big heavyweights in recent years the only counter argument I see is that fighters in the 180-220 lb range have not been as good from the mid 1990s onwards as they were in earlier eras. But is this assertion backed by any evidence? What evidence is there from guys in this size range getting worse? We have plenty of film to analyze.