BoxRec

Two heavyweight contenders la starza of the early 50s and machen of the late 50s. both defensive counterpuncher boxers who never won the heavyweight title. this one is probably hard to call since im sure a lot of u have only seen la starza fight in his rematch vs marciano.

but i thought id pick a new matchup where we have two counterpunching boxers like la starza and machen. this would probably be a boring fight but i there will be a lot of boxing and countering and i see la starza winning a decision. i think la starza had the better jab and was a little more aggresive than machen. could go either way though.

Machen

He was faster, hit harder, and harder to hit clean. I think Machen was the most under-rated of all of the deep fielded late 50s/early 60s HW bunch (including Folley, Williams, Cleroux, Lincoln etc.)

i dont think he was that underated. people tend to say what u say just because he took liston 12 rounds and did manage to give him a competetive fight while virtually everyone else was knocked out by liston. he just held on to liston for 12 rounds and fought a cuatious fight wanting only to survive the distance. The reporters used to say patterson ducked machen until patterson proved thme wrong by outclassing machen over 12 rounds. machen also lost a dreadfully boring deciison to ernie terell for his chance to win the title.
Eddie machen was also his INGOs Bingo and knocked out in one round by johanseen. so in his biggest fights and chances, he showed he was just another contender.


the most underated was defintely cleveland williams.

This one is easy. Machen beat much tougher opponents and would clearly be the better puncher. Machen by UD or late stoppage. Incidently, the two things that I also think of when I hear Machen being mentioned are. 1. He handed Jerry Quarry is first pro defeat. 2. He got KO'ed in the 1st round by Ingemar Johansson, indicating the Swede wasen't a bad fighter afterall.

I'll pick La Starza because he went the distance and quite possibly got robbed the first time against Marciano. There may be a misperception of him too, as regards his style and punching ability. I read an old Ring magazine in which they discussed the first fight between he and the Rock and his chances of getting a title shot and there seemed to be a consensus that he hit at least as hard as Marciano, on a one punch basis but that Marciano's greater work rate and his insistence on hitting his rival, plus the fact that he threw every punch with everything on it made him the "better puncher" Also he was ahead of Marciano on two of three cards in the second Marciano fight. LaStarza by UD.

Don't understand how one judges LaStarza based on his fights with Marciano in this context, b/c Machen and Rocky are almost complete opposites.

If you look at Roland's record he basically built up it up vs a bunch of nobodies in New York. The other top HW he faced was super-slow Rex Layne who he managed a split decision over. Not very impressive. I would bet a good deal of money Machen would have either stopped Layne or won a WIDE decision over him.

Machen was the better athlete and a very slippery boxer. LaStarza is just outgunned in every field here . . . .

But Brockton wasn't Machen's kayo loss to Johannson the only time he was knocked out in his prime?

yes that was the only time machen was stopped. and thats cause when machen faced the big punchers, he fought a fight to just survive the distance. against liston, he was pettrified IMO, and though liston didnt have one of his better fights, machen held on to him and just ran away and avoided his shots the whole night and didnt fire neough punches needed to win. i do grant machen on a good fight though.

but against ingo, he had no idea about ingos right hand so he didnt give ingo the respect he gave other big punchers and BOOM, the hammor of thor connected.

He didn't fight scared of Liston . . .he was forced to fight a defensive fight b/c of Liston's long JAB, not just b/c he was a big puncher. Machen beat many good punchers in his day.

The Ingo fight was a one-off affair b/c Ingo had a very sneaky right hand. I would put my money on a clear Machen victory if they had ever rematched a la Lewis-Rahman.

BrocktonBlockbuster49 wrote:i dont think he was that underated. people tend to say what u say just because he took liston 12 rounds and did manage to give him a competetive fight while virtually everyone else was knocked out by liston. he just held on to liston for 12 rounds and fought a cuatious fight wanting only to survive the distance. The reporters used to say patterson ducked machen until patterson proved thme wrong by outclassing machen over 12 rounds. machen also lost a dreadfully boring deciison to ernie terell for his chance to win the title.
Eddie machen was also his INGOs Bingo and knocked out in one round by johanseen. so in his biggest fights and chances, he showed he was just another contender.


the most underated was defintely cleveland williams.

How can you talk about how Machen came up short in his big fights as a reason he wasn't underrated, then say Cleveland Williams was underrated??? Williams' only win over a ranked opponent in nearly 100 fights was against Ernie Terrell, and he lost the rematch, too. He was blown out both times by Liston and by Bob Satterfield and his career high accomplishment outside the Terrell win was managing a draw with Machen.

dempseyfire wrote:Don't understand how one judges LaStarza based on his fights with Marciano in this context, b/c Machen and Rocky are almost complete opposites.

If you look at Roland's record he basically built up it up vs a bunch of nobodies in New York. The other top HW he faced was super-slow Rex Layne who he managed a split decision over. Not very impressive. I would bet a good deal of money Machen would have either stopped Layne or won a WIDE decision over him.

Machen was the better athlete and a very slippery boxer. LaStarza is just outgunned in every field here . . . .

If you look at Roland's record he basically built up it up vs a bunch of nobodies in New York. The other top HW he faced was super-slow Rex Layne who he managed a split decision over. Not very impressive. I would bet a good deal of money Machen would have either stopped Layne or won a WIDE decision over him.

Not true. Dan Bucceroni was a top five heavyweight when LaStarza beat him, and Cesar Brion was a top-10 guy as well. I believe LaStarza's win over Layne was a split decision because one judge had a weird scorecard, not because it was all that close of a fight. LaStarza's failure to face more top heavyweights was more a result of his weak management(Jimmy DeAngelo wanted to trade him to a management that would have been able to get him more opportunities and big fights, but LaStarza loved the guy like his own father and refused to leave, even though it badly hurt his career and caused him to neander around having unproductive fights).

I think LaStarza was actually a better classical boxer with a tighter defense than Machen, although Machen was the more offensive-minded of the two and the more powerful puncher. LaStarza is an underrated puncher, though. Many talk about him as though he was a Chris-Byrd-type slapper, but he was far from that. He was just a very defensive-minded fighter. When he let loose, LaStarza could punch- in his rematch with Bucceroni(who was 37-2 and the #3 RING Magazine contender) LaStarza knocked him down five times en route to an easy victory. LaStarza is a very underrated fighter in my opinion, and I'd make him the slight favorite in this match.

LaStarza-Machen? Machen certainly did fighter better competition and was very experienced. Both had mediocre power, each had decent chins so it's doubtful there would be a knockout. However Machen was better defensively, so I seem him winning a decision in a dull fight.