How good was Rocky Marciano?

[RicardinhoPT]

I know everything about MMA but I'm a boxing casual fan and only watch the big fights. However I've boxed 5 fights when I was younger and like to read about boxers. I've just finished a book on Rocky Marciano and now I wonder how good he really was. Although he retired undefeated, the big fighters he fought (Louis and Moore) were not in their prime, his technique was not the best, he has had two questionable wins (Lowry and LaStarza) and his reign wasn't as long as some.

Where does he rank between the alltime greats? How good was he really?

 

[Hagler]

Top 10 or 15 HW ATG. Lacks one or two wins against big heavyweights in their prime. Possibly protected by the mob - it’s not like he was the only one.

Would matchup better with current CWs.

Great work ethics, strength, stamina, power and recovery. Not the greatest technical skills, but still a crafty fellow.

 

[Mendacious]

Top 10 or 15 HW ATG. Lacks one or two wins against big heavyweights in their prime. Possibly protected by the mob - it’s not that he was the only one.

Would matchup better with current CWs.

Great work ethics, strength, stamina, power and recovery. Not the greatest technical skills, but still a crafty fellow.

Protected how? AFAIK, which ain't much, he fought everyone he had to.

 

[SandisLL]

In modern days he in CW could be in top 5 definitely.

his technique was not the best,

Actually smaller size boxers in HW used different style of fighting, for example Dempsey and Tyson too were relatively small size for HW and they yes, fight differently than other larger size guys.
If they used the same tactics as used their opponents that had better reach than they, then…. most likely they never had belts.

Actually interesting, why nobody judges Ali for example?
How prime Ali for example is comparable with modern HW boxers or CW boxers?
Especially against a bit dirty boxers, not so polite and kind gentleman like Fraizer was.
Or against Usyk at 215 lbs. Let's discuss.

Actually Dempsey likes me a lot, his story, childhood, road to life.

 

[Kowboy On Sherdog]

How come when somebody mentions boxing they mention Rocky Marciano.... He did beat a 120 year old Joe Lewis.

 

[Hagler]

Protected how? AFAIK, which ain't much, he fought everyone he had to.

Nick Tosches made a convincing case for the Moore fight's being fixed in the book he wrote about Liston, as an example of a mob's job.

 

[mozfonky]

I know everything about MMA but I'm a boxing casual fan and only watch the big fights. However I've boxed 5 fights when I was younger and like to read about boxers. I've just finished a book on Rocky Marciano and now I wonder how good he really was. Although he retired undefeated, the big fighters he fought (Louis and Moore) were not in their prime, his technique was not the best, he has had two questionable wins (Lowry and LaStarza) and his reign wasn't as long as some.

Where does he rank between the alltime greats? How good was he really?

the proper way to phrase that is "how great was rocky marciano". He proved everything a great fighter needs to, came from behind to win, was in real danger of losing and pulled out fights. he will go down as not as great as ali and louis, and he would probably come behind Holmes too, and some others would just probably be too big for him. he wasn't all that small though really, any man in that kind of shape who weighs above 175 is actually pretty big and muscular. He was short and stubby of course but joe louis said it hurt just to bump into him. He cut easily, but his skill was a little underrated. Ezzard Charles and Joe Walcott gave him tough fights but he also beat both twice didn't he? They were older but still good enough to be in the position to challenge for the title at the time. He also threw more punches than any heavyweight ever, the best pressure fighter in the division.

 

[mozfonky]

Nick Tosches made a convincing case for the Morre fight's being fixed in the book he wrote about Liston, as an example of a mob's job.

tosches seemed a bit conpiratorial, i don't believe it for a minute.

 

[JayE]

tosches seemed a bit conpiratorial, i don't believe it for a minute.

It takes a little imagination, but based on sources, it's not that far out relative to a lot Liston takes.

 

[Hagler]

tosches seemed a bit conpiratorial, i don't believe it for a minute.

As far as I remember he had a first-hand witness. We’ll never know for sure, I guess.

 

[JayE]

I think Marciano would wipe out this crop of CWs including Usyk.

 

[mozfonky]

As far as I remember he had a first-hand witness. We’ll never know for sure, I guess.

no we won't, as many historical figures as i've studied, one thing i've learned, they all had people who insist they were ways which are just plain not, mutually exclusive. Meaning, ali was either terrified of the muslims and did what they said or he was a brave, heroic man who stood by his principles. He can't be both. the us government had a lot more power than the muslims and he had no problem telling them to go to hell. Yet, the stories that he was petrified of the muslims doing to him what they did to malcolm and others. Makes no sense, the govt. has a much higher bodycount than any other entity. pretty much all the guy i've studied have those sorts of insonsistencies given by the idiots around them.

 

[mozfonky]

It takes a little imagination, but based on sources, it's not that far out relative to a lot Liston takes.

he's a good writer but he seems to be in the mailer, ginsberg and that whole generation of beat writers. It's his job to make shit readable, i think he kept mentioning some guy in a porkpie hat in the liston book, good writer but the truth (although stranger than fiction) isn't a mystery novel. didn't know he died, he' a "gonzo journalist"? I think that means he digs a lot of bullshit. RIP

 

[JayE]

he's a good writer but he seems to be in the mailer, ginsberg and that whole generation of beat writers. It's his job to make shit readable, i think he kept mentioning some guy in a porkpie hat in the liston book, good writer but the truth (although stranger than fiction) isn't a mystery novel. didn't know he died, he' a "gonzo journalist"? I think that means he digs a lot of bullshit. RIP

I'm no expert, but I'd place Tosches well outside of the realm of the beat writers or Norman Mailer. I can see calling him a Gonzo journalist, even if I'd shy away from that, but from the little I've read of him I find him credible.

 

[mozfonky]

I'm no expert, but I'd place Tosches well outside of the realm of the beat writers or Norman Mailer. I can see calling him a Gonzo journalist, even if I'd shy away from that, but from the little I've read of him I find him credible.

i actually thought he may have been a guy i just watched a docu on, it turns out it was gay talese, a guy who has that journalistic bullshit type of thing going on, dresses a way to create a persona. those guys all seem the same to me, the docu i watched was under scrutiny because the subject and he were found to have some problems in their story. I dunno, i don't trust journalists, i've had family who were conned by them. funny thing, lots of guys in the limelight, at one time or another have had the same experience, Ali went through a phase in the eighties where he was saying things like "i can't trust you, you're white" (said this to robert lypsyte) ali had some deceptive stories done with his cooperation i'm sure this was a reason for him saying things like that. Michael Jackson was ruined by Martin Bashir, dorian yates recently said he began taping all interviews after an early interviewer twisted his words into saying something about schwarzenegger that he didn't. they are like cops in a way, except, you probably should never talk to cops without a lawyer.

 

[Hagler]

Tosches’s book is pretty well documented - at the expense of its style, IMO. The guy wanted to prove a point : that Liston probably threw both Ali fights. Marciano-Moore is mentioned in the background as an example of a fixed fight. Tosches had access to better sources on this specific case.

 

[JayE]

i actually thought he may have been a guy i just watched a docu on, it turns out it was gay talese, a guy who has that journalistic bullshit type of thing going on, dresses a way to create a persona. those guys all seem the same to me, the docu i watched was under scrutiny because the subject and he were found to have some problems in their story. I dunno, i don't trust journalists, i've had family who were conned by them. funny thing, lots of guys in the limelight, at one time or another have had the same experience, Ali went through a phase in the eighties where he was saying things like "i can't trust you, you're white" (said this to robert lypsyte) dorian yates recently said he began taping all interviews after an early interviewer twisted his words into saying something about schwarzenegger that he didn't. they are like cops in a way, except, you probably should never talk to cops without a lawyer.

You're not wrong about journos being shady. It's practically their job. There are some genuinely good ones, though. The US has fun idea that they have a free press that brings the truth out (recent events in Latin America are evidence to exactly what the major players in the US press are there for), but there were some genuinely great boxing writers who, in my limited view, did their best to get at what they were writing about.

For the record, I kind of like Gay Talese, but I've never read any of his boxing writing.

 

[mozfonky]

don't know if gay has done any boxing writing, I'm not sure if i've actually read anything by him. the voyeur docu was an interesting one but really, it struck me as having stretched the truth, just on an instinctive level. i'll check to see if gay ever wrote on ali, it was mandatory for his type of writer (mailer, thompson) to take on the ali myth.

 

[mozfonky]

he wrote "ali in havana" surprised i never read that one, it would be one of the few of it's kind that i haven't read, meaning, any ali coverage since i became an ali fanatic.

 

[JayE]

don't know if gay has done any boxing writing, I'm not sure if i've actually read anything by him. the voyeur docu was an interesting one but really, it struck me as having stretched the truth, just on an instinctive level. i'll check to see if gay ever wrote on ali, it was mandatory for his type of writer (mailer, thompson) to take on the ali myth.

Yeah, I still have a love for Hunter S Thompson's writing, but there's a ton of undeserved hero worship in there for Ali in his 60-70s writing. He disabused himself of that in the 80s, I think, which was good.

Granted, I call this undeserved in retrospect, of course, where it's easy to separate oneself from the zeitgeist of the moment, so these are soft criticisms which are barely deserved.