Rocky Marciano vs. Muhammad Ali

Who wins?

  • Rocky Marciano

  • Muhammad Ali

  • Draw


Results are only viewable after voting.
I asked BoxRec's "What if?" prediction engine. It says the fight would've been 50/50. So, I flipped a coin (not precisely 50/50 but close enough in probability). Ali was tails and Marciano was heads. It was tails. Ali wins.

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Well that's beautiful stuff and truly impressive but the first two gifs the guy isn't crowding Ali like Marciano would, and in none of those animations is a body punch being thrown (something Rocky would have done).

Anyway, like was said before: too big of a size difference to make this a matchup given the adjustment to weight classes.
 
Well that's beautiful stuff and truly impressive but the first two gifs the guy isn't crowding Ali like Marciano would, and in none of those animations is a body punch being thrown (something Rocky would have done).

Good point. Marciano would come from low.
Chuvalo got inside on Ali and roughed him up, even though losing almost all rounds. I would argue that Marciano was better than Chuvalo.

I'd pick Ali to win, but it's more competitive than people assume.
 
Marciano too small and too slow.
 
Ali stops him on cuts in a tougher fight than most think. Marciano was a fucking tank.
 
Well that's beautiful stuff and truly impressive but the first two gifs the guy isn't crowding Ali like Marciano would, and in none of those animations is a body punch being thrown (something Rocky would have done).

Anyway, like was said before: too big of a size difference to make this a matchup given the adjustment to weight classes.

Remember the Rumble in the Jungle? Foreman (who is MILES stronger than Marciano ever dreamed of being) went at Ali's midsection like a man possessed... We know what happened there...
 
Remember the Rumble in the Jungle? Foreman (who is MILES stronger than Marciano ever dreamed of being) went at Ali's midsection like a man possessed... We know what happened there...

I was referring to the animations attached to that post which didn't show that. I do remember watching the fight and that's why I did not say that he did not throw body punches at all. But, body punches would help, and Marciano would throw them and not tire like Foreman. He might stay on him the whole 15, which he has the habit of doing, or at least trying, and through aggression and output snag more rounds than people give him credit for. So there's that. Not saying he wins, not saying he loses handily. Just saying a close and fun fight.
 
The Foreman argument is hilarious. Body punches are useless vs. Ali because he didn't get knocked out by George Foreman? lol

If Frazier only had known that, he wouldn't have wasted so much energy on working Ali's body and focused solely on his head.
 
I'd agree, he's a terrible matchup for a guy like Ward. I actually think a guy like Kovalev could have half decent success at HW (and he might be the best CW in the world). Likely not elite, but he'd beat more guys than people think.
eh, I think it'd be about like when Adamek went to HW.
 
Foreman would have literally killed marciano. So would Frazier and Liston.

Ali wins all day everyday
Joe Frazier vs MArciano is probably a more interesting fantasy matchup than Ali vs Marciano.
 
People tend to overrate Marciano because of the perfect record. It was impressive, and he was a very good fighter but not on the level of Ali. The fight would be a one sided mismatch. A better "who would win" would be Marciano vs Holyfield or Marciano vs Michael Spinks.
 
People tend to overrate Marciano because of the perfect record. It was impressive, and he was a very good fighter but not on the level of Ali. The fight would be a one sided mismatch. A better "who would win" would be Marciano vs Holyfield or Marciano vs Michael Spinks.

so Holyfield wasn't Ali level too?
 
Well that's beautiful stuff and truly impressive but the first two gifs the guy isn't crowding Ali like Marciano would, and in none of those animations is a body punch being thrown (something Rocky would have done).

Anyway, like was said before: too big of a size difference to make this a matchup given the adjustment to weight classes.
Ali fought plenty of guys who weren't much bigger than Marciano. Patterson and Frazier weren't giants.
 
Ali fought plenty of guys who weren't much bigger than Marciano. Patterson and Frazier weren't giants.

Frazier was bigger. Patterson was small and not particularly solid, though he had guts (he was at one point a middleweight actually). We saw what happened to him once the era of bigger heavyweights descended in the sixties. An inch or two in height (which ain't much) and 15 pounds minimum (which is substantially more, depending on what stages in their respective careers).

Frazier would still be a heavyweight by today's standards. Marciano would be a cruiserweight.
 
Frazier was bigger. Patterson was small and not particularly solid, though he had guts (he was at one point a middleweight actually). We saw what happened to him once the era of bigger heavyweights descended in the sixties. An inch or two in height (which ain't much) and 15 pounds minimum (which is substantially more, depending on what stages in their respective careers).

Frazier would still be a heavyweight by today's standards. Marciano would be a cruiserweight.
Frazier at his best weighed in close to today's CW limit. He'd be fighting at cruiser today.
 
Frazier at his best weighed in close to today's CW limit. He'd be fighting at cruiser today.

Unlikely, Frazier hit harder even that most heavyweights today. And we know he could beat most of them ...someone who can beat Ali, can most likely beat Tony Bellew.
 
Frazier at his best weighed in close to today's CW limit. He'd be fighting at cruiser today.

He literally said "Frazier was bigger" than Marciano, which he undoubtedly was.

Frazier was basically Holyfield's weight, which was a good stone plus (that's like fifteen pounds plus, Colonials) heavier than Marciano (RM regularly tipped the scales at 185-ish, never more than 190 (only a couple rare occasions); Frazier was 200 plus & usually five-ten pounds over that when still young, so the difference might've been 20 pounds plus).

Yes, Frazier would be a small heavyweight today, or dried out to make cruiser. But Marciano wouldn't even be a fucking heavyweight. That's his point.
 
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