BoxRec

Ring Magazine October 1953 issue-ratings for period ending 8-18-1953
Champion-Rocky Marciano
1. Roland LaStarza
2. Ezzard Charles
3. Dan Bucceroni
4. Nino Valdes
5. Tommy Harrison
6. Bob Satterfield
7. Heinz Neuhaus
8. Don Cockell
9. Earl Walls
10. Harry Matthews

Ring Magazine ratings from August 1954 issue
Champion-Rocky Marciano
1. Ezzard Charles
2. Nino Valdes
3. Don Cockell
4. Jimmy Slade
5. Roland LaStarza
6. Hurricane Jackson
7. Dan Bucceroni
8. Bob Baker
9. Earl Walls
10. Heinz Neuhaus

Ring Magazine August 1955 issue-Ratings for period ending June 22,
1955.
Champion-Rocky Marciano
1. Archie Moore
2. Bob Baker
3. Don Cockell
4. Nino Valdes
5. Hurricane Jackson
6. Ezzard Charles
7. Earl Walls
8. John Holman
9. Rex Layne
10. Heinz Neuhaus



- Very interesting. as you see, Lastarza, Moore, Charles were all rated # 1 contenders when they fought Rocky Marciano. So this means outside of cockell(who was ranked # 2 when he fought rocky)....rocky took on all # 1 contenders.....charles, walcott, moore, lastarza.

- >>>>Very interesting. as you see, Lastarza, Moore, Charles were all rated # 1 contenders when they fought Rocky Marciano. So this means outside of cockell(who was ranked # 2 when he fought rocky)....rocky took on all # 1 contenders.....charles, walcott, moore, lastarza>>>>

You are 100% correct, which really should put an end to the nonsense that Marciano's opponents were second rate.

said it before and i'll say it again. Compared to Louis's "bum of the month club", and a highly over rated Billy Conn, Marciano's opposition compares extremely well.

This of coarse, will not make a dent in the Rocky haters thinking. They are relentless in their hostorical revision.

cosand wrote:- >>>>Very interesting. as you see, Lastarza, Moore, Charles were all rated # 1 contenders when they fought Rocky Marciano. So this means outside of cockell(who was ranked # 2 when he fought rocky)....rocky took on all # 1 contenders.....charles, walcott, moore, lastarza>>>>

You are 100% correct, which really should put an end to the nonsense that Marciano's opponents were second rate.

said it before and i'll say it again. Compared to Louis's "bum of the month club", and a highly over rated Billy Conn, Marciano's opposition compares extremely well.

This of coarse, will not make a dent in the Rocky haters thinking. They are relentless in their hostorical revision.

I dont think Rocky's 6 title defenses compare to Joe's 25, Bum of the month or not. Im a big Rocky Marciano supporter and I do consider his 6 defenses very quality but Louis was Champ for over 12 years.

said it before and i'll say it again. Compared to Louis's "bum of the month club", and a highly over rated Billy Conn, Marciano's opposition compares extremely well.

now you have crossed the line. i totally disagree with this. first, billy conn is not overated. in fact hes underated. Louis fought a much wider variety of styles than marciano did, and beat better depth than marciano did. sure louis didnt take on some of the better black fighters out there, but world war II prevented matches from happening. Louis also beat arguebably the two best black fighters of that period, jersey joe walcott and john henry lewis. Also, Joe Louis beat two top 20 heavyweights of all time during his title reing max schmeling and jersey joe walcott.


in terms of quality, marcianos title reign stacks up well with louis's. but louis depth, # of title defenses, and wide variety of stlyes beaten blows marcianos title reign out of the water.

i might add though...........realistically lastarza was not the # 1 heavyweight contender in 1953. the RING refused to rate archie moore and harold johnson at heavyweights since they were lightheavyweights......but to the boxing public at the time, the general consensous was Archie Moore and Harold Johnson were the # 1 and # 2 heavyweight contenders considering who they beat. if you look at the records, moore and johnson would have been 1 and 2 had they been ranked. so really, moore and johnson should be # 1 and # 2 with lastarza at # 3.

BrocktonBlockbuster49 wrote:Louis also beat arguebably the two best black fighters of that period, jersey joe walcott and john henry lewis. Also, Joe Louis beat two top 20 heavyweights of all time during his title reing max schmeling and jersey joe walcott.

Yes...and not to forget Louis opponents before his title reign. Joe kayoed three former Heavyweight Champions: Primo Carnera, Max Bar and Jack Sharkey...

but lets get back on track with the topic of this tread

BrocktonBlockbuster49 wrote:but lets get back on track with the topic of this tread

o.k. ...nice to see Heinz Neuhaus mentioned.
;)

Friedie wrote:

BrocktonBlockbuster49 wrote:but lets get back on track with the topic of this tread

o.k. ...nice to see Heinz Neuhaus mentioned.
;)

you got any rare info on heinz neuhas?? wuts ur thoughts on him? ever see him on film?

BrocktonBlockbuster49 wrote:

Friedie wrote:

BrocktonBlockbuster49 wrote:but lets get back on track with the topic of this tread

o.k. ...nice to see Heinz Neuhaus mentioned.
;)

you got any rare info on heinz neuhas?? wuts ur thoughts on him? ever see him on film?

I saw him sometimes in TV reviews....here some facts, most of them from a German sports-history book and from German Wikipedia:

Heinz Neuhaus:

born April, 14th, 1926 in Iserlohn (near Dortmund) Heinz Neuhaus started boxing during the war. He became German Youth-Lightheavyweight Champion in 1942 and German Youth-Heavyweight Champion in 1943. After that he fought in the war and became a war-prisoner. After his release he started his professional career in 1949 wich lasted for 9 years. During this time he fought both the best German and European Heavyweights and some World-Class Heavyweights too. Neuhaus was a big local hero in Dortmund (he had many fights in the famous "Westfalenhalle") who fought very spectacular, a very open and offensive fighting style.

Neuhaus won the European Heavyweight Championship in 1952 from Karel Sys and retained that title 4 times successful in the next years loosing it to Franco Cavicci in 1955... So most of the time Rocky Marciano hold the World Crown, Neuhaus was ruling the Heavyweight scene in Europe. In 1953 he lost an Eliminator-Bout for the World Title against Nino Valdes from Cuba (who didn't get the shot afterwards cause of political reasons I guess). But Neuhaus had some good wins too....against tough opposition like Empire Champions Johnny Williams and Joe Bygraves, Hein ten Hoff, Dan Bucceroni, Rex Layne, Joeey Maxim or Brian London and he had a draw with Henry Cooper.

After loosing his last two fights against upcomming Ingemar Johansson and Albert Westphal in 1958 Heinz Neuhaus retired from boxing.

Neuhaus died in 1998.


More Heavyweight Rankings of the 50ties here:
http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Aren ... /ring.html

BrocktonBlockbuster49 wrote: - Very interesting. as you see, Lastarza, Moore, Charles were all rated # 1 contenders when they fought Rocky Marciano. So this means outside of cockell(who was ranked # 2 when he fought rocky)....rocky took on all # 1 contenders.....charles, walcott, moore, lastarza.

I think it would be very interesting to compare champions by noting the (Ring magazine?) ranking of their opponents going into their fights. Rocky Marciano is sometimes criticized for defending against low quality challengers, but as BrocktonBlockbuster49 points out, he took on the best challengers available to him at the time.

Here's a no-so-quick look at Larry Holmes, as an example, using Ring's Ratings from the "period ending" issue immediatly before the fight:

Evangelista (6)
Ocasio (5)
Weaver (eight)
Shavers (3)
Zanon (7)
Jones (6)

For these six fights Holmes was listed as Number 1 contender, first under Ali, then under "Title Vacant". After Weaver beat Tate, Holmes was given status as Champion as he'd already beaten new WBA champ Weaver.

LeDoux (10)
Ali (5)
Berbick (RIP)(7)
Spinks (3)
Snipes (10)
Cooney (3)
Cobb (9)
Rodriguez (unranked)
Witherspoon (10)
Frank (unranked)
Frazier (10)
Smith (9)
Bey (3)
Williams (12)
Spinks (Lt. Heavy champ)

It's interesting to see that Larry never fought anyone ranked higher than #3 by Ring. The #1 position was always occupied by another organization's titleholder, but folks like Page, Dokes, Weaver, and Coetzee were in the number 2 spot for long periods, though often taking turns holding the WBA title.

I didn't mean to hijack this thread about Marciano. I just meant to illustrate, as BrocktonBlockbuster49 pointed out, that it's interesting to see where a champion's challengers were actually ranked going into the fight.