Rocky Marciano vs. Joe Louis
Posted: 27 Feb 2022, 23:25
Not the 38 year old Louis. The prime Joe.
Prime Marciano versus prime Louis ...
Personally I thought the rock got better after he defeated the brown bomber, so the version I have in mind would be of Marciano/Charles up against the version that annihilated Max Schmeling.
Most people would say Louis, but if he were to win it would not come easy at all and would probably be the toughest fight he would ever have against anybody--- because Marciano's unbelievable conditioning and will to win and non-stop punching would constantly force Louis to be on the defensive.
However I think Louis would engage offensively as much as he possibly could because he would realize really fast that defense only made him more vulnerable--- just like Archie Moore and others realized retrospectively that being on the defensive only made them absorb more punishment.
To beat a man like Marciano as to either jab his head off perpetually moving, which is something that the brown bomber was incapable of doing, or you had to take it straight to Marciano. Much as I love Joe Louis he did not have a great chin and I could see him getting dropped more than once over the course of 15 rounds and potentially getting stopped somewhere between rounds 10 and 12.
Unlike most heavyweights who would get tired after four rounds and take off for rounds only to come back in the later rounds, Marciano was like a coiled Cobra ready to strike every moment of every round and instead of getting tired it always seemed that his punch rate went up as the rounds went on.
Fights with Tony Galento & Arturo Gudoy demonstrated that it was problematic for the brown bomber to face brawlers and swarmers, because he simply could not fight their kind of fights he had to be more scientific in his approach to get the better of them--- and Rocky Marciano was a hell of a lot better than those two guys were.
Years ago on the forum I imagined the fight going the entire 15 rounds with Marciano winning a majority or split decision. I might have been a teenager then or in my early twenties. Now that I'm in my 30s I don't think it goes the distance but ends in a stoppage with Marciano winning with his face grossly battered and torn to bits, and the brown bomber being grossly swollen and busted up as well.
A lot of moments in the fight where the referee wants to jump in but the two men dig down deep and fight back hard forcing the referee to step back and let them continue. Very little clenching done in this battle. Marciano hits the deck twice, but Louis gets dropped four or five times with referee Ruby Goldstein waving it off and Madison Square Garden going absolutely nuts. Both men go to the hospital and both men say in their first interviews they want to do the rematch.
