BoxRec

Hey guys, I'm just wondering what some of you think on who would have won a matchup between Prime Marciano and Prime Tyson.

Here are my thoughts:
Power: Pretty much a wash, although I could see giving the nod to Tyson based on his being about 25 pounds heavier.

Hand Speed: Tyson

Movement/Agility: A wash. Neither of them really utilized a lot of quickness while not throwing, although maybe Tyson had better head movement...not sure.

Conditioning/Stamina: Marciano, easy. Rocky always still had KO power in the late rounds. Prime Tyson wasn't in bad shape, but he was mainly a 6-round fighter who was in enough shape to finish off a battered opponent after that, or go the distance with a defensive fighter (but not finish them). The Douglas fight showed that Tyson's legs got tired in the later rounds when he had a two-sided fight on his hands. No such indication on Rock.

Technique: Tyson was more technically sound, but he could get lazy (eg the Steve Zouski fight).

Chin: Definitely Marciano. He was never really hurt, even late in his career, having fought several legit champions and taking some shots. Tyson never really got tested until Buster Douglas, and his chin didn't end up being anything special then nor later.

Heart: The biggest disparity is here, where Marciano has the obvious advantage. Forgetting the later years when he didn't care, Tyson still had a weak psyche. Anytime someone hit him back and took his shots standing up, Tyson lost his edge. As Tyson's ex-trainer Teddy Atlas put it, the Douglas fight was over when Douglas got up from the knockdown. By contrast, Marciano thrived on adversity. Walcott was arguably dominating him in their first fight, and knocked him down. When Marciano got up, he came back stronger, and put Walcott out. When Ezzard Charles partially severed his noze, Marciano talked the doctor out of stopping the fight, and then very quickly dispatched the former champ.

Result: I think Marciano would win by a mid-round KO. I think the first 6 rounds or so would be great action-packed boxing, with Tyson probably going ahead on points and maybe knocking Marciano down a time or two with shots that don't really hurt Rocky, but eventually Tyson would tire and become frustrated, at which point Rocky would find an opening and put him down for good.

would be a very interesting Match Up.

Especially with their techniques..

I personally feel that Prime Tyson Beats a Prime Marciano.

If i am correct, Tyson is Just slightly taller than Rocky..

With Tyson's ability to Chop Down HW's A lot taller than him, i feel Rocky would take a lot more punishment due to his height

I think Tyson had the better movement and agility, early on his defence was exceptional for a 'big' man.

Over 15 rounds I can see Marciano maintaining momentum from round 9 onwards especially, with Tyson burning out. I think he has a good chance at getting a decision.

I do not see him beating a peak Tyson by KO.

I also find it hard to imagine Tyson KOing marciano. I think he has a good chance at putting Marciano on the canvas however. He has that speed, power and size to do this.

This is for me anyhow suprisingly a hard one to call, I think Tyson takes it over 12 rounds or TKO..I do see him opening up a cut on Marciano which a modern Ref or Dr would use to stop the fight.

Marciano - Endurance, Chin, Recovery Ability, Tenacity

Tyson- Exposiveness, Size, Speed, Power, not that bad a chin.


Lets say Tyson uses his jab, head movement and because he is the bigger man, does not have to leap with that hook. I see him doing pretty good in this fight.

Marciano never faced any one like Tyson. Marciano is a unique man himself who had attributes such as heart and desire that define his style.

There is no doubt as to who had the greater heart, but sometimes that is not enough.

Kym

Dempsey could beat Tyson, but that's because he was fast off the blocks, & had great reflexes & general speed of hand & foot. Not so Marciano, who is too slow in the early going, which costs him.

Tyson via early stoppage.

How do you see a Dempsey-Tyson fight going?

tyson would be too big for marciano imo. marciano weighs as much as a light heavy today. these guys today come in weighing what he did after they re-hydrate after the weigh-in. but when you talk about history, marciano was great. tyson was great but could have been so much more.

through the looking glass again.... Marciano can be decked but he can't be beaten by a fighter who is not willing to pay a HUGE price. How much pain was Tyson willing to take? Not enough....not nearly enough.

He may have had the skills, but he never had the heart to gut it out with a guy of Marciano's tenacity. It's why Holyfield perservered over him....well that and a few well place head butts.

If he could keep Marciano down? for my money that's just too big of an if for Tyson.

I like tyson by mid round stoppage here over rocky, but for different reasons than other posters here stated. tyson knocks out dempsey easier than marciano, because dempsey did not have good defense when he was on the assault(firpo nearly took him out)

"...tyson knocks out dempsey easier than marciano, because dempsey did not have good defense when he was on the assault..." - Brockton

& Marciano does!?

(I'll get to you when time permits, Robinson).

I get the arguments about Rocky's heart, but Rocky would have to survive at least six rounds against a guy up who was up to thirty pounds heavier, who almost certainly hit harder, and who had better defense and hand speed. If Rocky can do that, God bless him, maybe there's a chance he might pull off a miracle. But, I would have to favor Tyson by KO.

I can see where some would hold Tyson as a favorite, but to me it truly depends on which Tyson we are talking about. Everyone says from the time he beat Berbick to his loss to Douglas was his best; but I tend to disagree, while he was at his physical peak years, after unification Tyson became more and more of a head hunter in the ring and it became apparent that he became less and less an advocate of training.

I think if Marciano fought the Tyson of the Bruno/Douglas fights, Rocky would be in alot of trouble for sure, but I think he would have been able to weather the storm and come back to break Tyson down and score a kayo late in the fight.

Now had Marciano fought the Tyson of the Berbick fight [which I believe was THE best Tyson] I wouldn't give Marciano much of a chance to be able to withstand that onslaught.

Ironically I think the guys that beat a prime Tyson are the very style of fighter he was breed to defeat.

A taller, boxer-puncher that can move and thump that jab.

Buster Douglas, even though the Tyson he had was less active, loaded up on his shots and seemed distracted at times. He still had the style that while boring to some, gets the job done. Had they met in 1987-88 instead of 1990, sure it'd be different. Marciano was far from being this mould of fighter.

Just watched last night a few Rocky fights, I do feel that Tyson takes this one. Perhaps not easily. I just see the Rock being messed up and I think a compassionate Ref or a more modern Dr would step in and award Tyson a TKO.

Kym

DAILY NEWS READ ALL ABOUT IT!!


Mike Tyson imprisoned for murder after killing two men one right after the other on the same night in the ring. Dempsey and Marciano funerals scheduled for Saturday at 2PM, visitors will be received anytime after 12 noon.

Tyson bail set at 2,000,000.

Yeah but who reads the news these days any how.

See I go a lot by what Teddy Atlas (Tyson's ex-trainer) says. Tyson, although he clearly had a problem with big men willing to throw on him, was troubled more than anything by resistance, as Atlas puts it. That's one thing that Marciano would give without question.

Virtually all of Tyson's opponents prior to Douglas came in scared, with the expectation if not intention to either lay down (Spinks, Berbick, et al) or clinch (Jesse Ferguson, Frank Bruno, Blood Green). One guy early on that didn't fight scared was Steve Zouski (himself from Brockton, MA). Zouski wasn't a tall man, and certainly didn't have the skills to stand up to Tyson or the technique to outbox him. But he sure tried, and although he did get taken out by 3rd Round KO, he got his shots in along the way. My contention is that where Zouski hit Tyson, Marciano would hurt him, and that Marciano wouldn't get taken out near as quickly as Zouski did. I think the record indicates that when a man stands with Tyson, Tyson will lose his aggressiveness and start to wither. I'm not 100% convinced there was a substantial difference between the Berbick Tyson and the Douglas Tyson going in. The difference, I think, was the opposition of a man both willing and able to throw effectively against him.

While I don't rule out either a KO or Cuts win for Tyson (I concede that Charles, Louis, and Walcott notwithstanding, Marciano never fought anyone who could test his chin the way Tyson could and that based largely on the one Charles fight, Rocky could be bled), I think the KO possibility has to be considered conjectural at best, since Marciano did face some serious fighters without ever coming close to that result.[/i]

I agree that Tyson, while winning every round of that fight, did look less than super human against Zouski, I can see your point.

I really do not buy into the popular media myth that EVERY Tyson opponent aside from douglas and holyfield were scared of him. I really do not think this is the case. This in my opinion is just mythology.

I think Atlas and I really am more than ever convinced of this after readingt his biography has sour grapes in regards to Tyson. And like many boxing trainers thinks that he (they) are the key to a fighters success more than the fighters own mind, heart, hard work and skills.

Tyson is not the dumb mindless, criminal brute that he has been portrayed as. I think more than many other men of history is very complicated. He is a study of boxing history and perhaps more than his critics knows his place and where he stands.

What you can not deny him is the fact that he was a very talented man, who trained very hard and smart to his style. I think marciano over came so much by hard work and desire, his awkwardness is testament to his work ethic/

But Tyson I feel is condemned as a heartless and yellow backed fighter, irrespective of his outside ring challenges.

My respect and like for Rocky as a man, makes me not want to go against him, but the more I think on this fight I feel that Tyson wins by TKO.

In either case as to how you see it. We all must appreciate at how wild and raw this fight at times would be.

Kym

Terry D wrote:I may favour Marciano as he would take what Tyson gave early then fire back. Tyson might just find Rocky too tough.

Tyson was too fast and strong, and a great finisher in his hey day. Marciano would never know what hit him. He would never even get into the fight and it would be over. Tyson was bigger, stronger, and quicker.

Speed kills in this one. My gut instinct is that Tyson hits him harder than anyone ever did, & when you marry that with the speed & size of Tyson, I just don't feel Marciano could get out of the way of the punches (& I don't care which Heavyweight we are talking about, if you're eating Tyson's shots clean, you're going to be hurt).

Marciano, despite being smaller, is a lot slower, not just in reflexes, but in terms of starting speed. Tyson is out of those blocks before Marciano even sees him coming. Now, I do not consider it some wild fantasy (ala Ringsider) that Marciano can survive what I expect will be an early going-over --- Tyson reacted strangely when adversity hit him right between the eyes, & Marciano arising from two or three knockdowns (the first few, likely in my book), & hitting Tyson harder than he may have expected, means the fight is risky in my book.

However, I just can't ignore the physical differences, or the speed of both men. Marciano gets cut, floored & dazed, holds on for dear life, hurts Tyson back at one point, but cannot follow up.

Tyson TKO4. Same goes for the similarly slow-starting & hittable Frazier, btw. Would love to be proven wrong in both instances, though.

Robinson wrote:I really do not buy into the popular media myth that EVERY Tyson opponent aside from douglas and holyfield were scared of him. I really do not think this is the case. This in my opinion is just mythology.

Maybe I did go too far by saying "virtually all" the fighters...the case could be made that some of the earlier opponents in particular at least were prepared to take a little punishment before getting dispatched...Sammy Scaff and Mike Jameson along with Zouski I guess. But decent fighters that could have concievably made a decent fight of it for a while like a Donnie Long, Trevor Berbick, or Mike Spinks in particular didn't fight like they were wanting to put themselves through it, because they had mentally lost the fight already...certainly by the end of the 1st round if not before the fight ever started. And while guys like Ferguson and Bruno didn't come in looking scared necessarily in the sense of irrational abandon of their will to win, they were clearly going with a strategy of holding Tyson and minimizing the action to some extent. They were scared in the sense that they knew they could never beat him straight up. If these guys would have just been fighting a generic really good boxer with great power, rather than Kid Dynamite, the next great champion, they probably would have come in with a stronger mentality. The fighter's state of mind is not to be underestimated. Picture running to the very end of your natural endurance and trying to force yourself to keep going. Now picture you're getting punched in the face the whole time. That will give you some idea of the pure determination it takes to fight just in general...let alone versus a special fighter like Tyson.

I also agree that Tyson was complex and not the pure devil everyone likes to see. If you watch his early interviews he was very well-behaved and showed a healthy respect for the sport. One announcer even described his actions as "gallant." And even Atlas makes it clear that there was a time in his life when Tyson worked harder and with more determination than anyone to become the world-beater he became. But yet I think that something in the way he was conditioned mentally led to an inherent weakness. His whole life from a very young age was built on the premise that he would be among the great heavyweight champions...the baddest man on the planet. When you've got those tools and that expectation, it's gotta be easy to play that role. But when suddenly you've got a guy who obviously doesn't believe that hype...a guy that is challenging you like you're just another fighter...that's bound to make you question your own myth real quick. I think that's what happened in Tyson's case. He won the heavyweight championship and then the universal recognition as such with less effort than he took to beat some early chumps. His confidence was based on his dominance, and when his dominance disappeared, his confidence and thus aggressiveness followed. Case-in-point: Buster Douglas...when Douglas came out and began dictating the fight, Tyson was shocked and let him take over. His only real moment in the fight was when he got an opportunistic uppercut in on Douglas that knocked him down after Douglas became a little too aggressive.

Now that doesn't mean Marciano would beat him. Marciano, not having the superior reach or footwork that Douglas had, nor any other actual skill that sets him apart from Tyson, would certainly have to weather an early onslaught before he could come on in the fight. I merely happen to think he could and would do so, particularly if Tyson didn't manage to cut him up or break his nose.[/i]

Marciano, despite being smaller, is a lot slower, not just in reflexes, but in terms of starting speed. Tyson is out of those blocks before Marciano even sees him coming. Now, I do not consider it some wild fantasy (ala Ringsider) that Marciano can survive what I expect will be an early going-over --- Tyson reacted strangely when adversity hit him right between the eyes, & Marciano arising from two or three knockdowns (the first few, likely in my book), & hitting Tyson harder than he may have expected, means the fight is risky in my book.

Marciano was a faster starter than Joe Frazier, and he continually got faster as the rounds went on, especially when he knew he had a man or hurt or slowing down or could sense that their will was fading. Mind you, Marciano's work rate is the stuff of legend, whether he landed blows or not, he averaged 80-85 punches a round and it was not unusual at all for him to throw over 100. He was basically doing a middleweight pace in the ring.

I kind of look at it like Larry Merchant said in a hypothetical for a Tyson-Frazier bout, that Tyson was "a mile wide and an inch thick, while Frazier was a mile wide and a foot thick", more or less meaning that Frazier had what it took deep down to take on Tyson's onslaughts...I say the same goes for Marciano.

If Bruno could last five, Biggs last seven(?), Bonecrusher last the distance, when none of those men were nowhere near Marciano's league...I cant honestly believe the "Tyson wins by KO in five rounds or less" predictions. I could see it if it was Marciano-Foreman, but not Tyson.

If Holyfield could withstand the pressure, I believe Marciano could have as well, though I must admit he would have been in worse shape (cut wise) than Holyfield, as The Rock did bleed easy.

Bruno and Smith were bigger than Tyson and could grab him and slow his offense. Biggs had some movement and was also tall so Tyson had to jump in with a lot of shots, and he was just taking his time in that fight. Rocky, on the other hand, is smaller than Mike, is not going to be clinching him, and Mike won't have to take his time looking for openings; he'll be hitting Rocky from the opening bell.

You can't assume that because someone is better that they'll last longer. Frazier and Norton were better than Perlata but they got knocked out faster than he did against George.

Tyson, won a lot of his fights through sheer intimidation. Rocky would never be intimidated by Tyson, so this would give him a head start.
Tyson has a big edge in speed, and would pummel Rocky in the first 3 or 4 rounds. Rocky would go down several times I would imagine. He would also get up, if hes still standing at the 6th bell I feel Tyson would become frustrated and Rocky would stop him in the later rounds.

Rocky Marciano is the greatest boxer ever.

If we're talking Tyson '88, then this is a HUGE mismatch. Rocky's record was padded throughout the upper levels by fights fixed by the mob, his opponents parents were likely to find themselves propping up overpasses if their sons didn't dive.

The 'Rock' goes down under an avalanche of leather by KO4, assuming Mike doesn't get a visit by Tony Soprano first.

What a bunch of nonsense. We have a boxing site filled with amateur psychologist thinking thet boxing is done with the brain. That somehow Marciano is going to psych out Mike Tyson. Nah......doesn't happen....... Before Tyson's pea brain is able to realize that Rocky came to fight, Rocky is KTFO and the fight is over. End of story.......now you guys go back and smoke some more weed.