Why do champions rarely mention Marciano among the greats?

[deucesarewild]

Tyson gets laughed at for beating Holmes, but we're going to pretend Moore, Louis and Charles were fresh? Why wasn't Spinks a great win when Charles was?

They were active, and only suddenly looked old after Marciano destroyed them. At the time, much like Tito's chances vs Hopkins, people lauded them as very dangerous and very capable. It's only in retrospect that we change things. Holmes took two years off but I personally never held that against Tyson or his win.

 

[Seano]

They were active, and only suddenly looked old after Marciano destroyed them. At the time, much like Tito's chances vs Hopkins, people lauded them as very dangerous and very capable. It's only in retrospect that we change things. Holmes took two years off but I personally never held that against Tyson or his win.

They suddenly looked old because they faced the only guy with a pulse in the division. Charles was 3-2 in his previous 5 fights before Marciano, its not like he hadn't shown vulnerability.


Moore had looked good at LHW. He hadn't done shit as a HW. Spinks was a defending champion.
Walcott and Louis were simply old. Literally.

 

[XThe GreatestX]

I put rocky slightly ahead of tyson in an all time hw rank

But pretty thin resume tbh

 

[aries]

They were still stronger passed their prime. How many boxers were real tough competitors and great fighters in the late 80s apart from Lewis, Holyfield and Tyson? Same phenomenon as in the 70s. We have three guys quite strong, making people automatically assume that the era must therefore be unusually strong. Well it isn't. If they didn't fight themselves it wasn't anything.

Not to say Bruno, Ruddock, Briggs, Mercer, Morrison were weak boxers, but they were all fairly unfulfilling when push came to shove

I don't buy that. Boxers in the 80's and definitely 90's got big. Who is to say how 185lb Marciano would have held up with the big boys of the 80's. As the saying goes a good big man beats a good little man. 185lb Marciano had a punch that could drop the bigger men of his time but could he have put a dent in Tua or Vitali?

 

[spacetime]

. 185lb Marciano had a punch that could drop the bigger men of his time but could he have put a dent in Tua or Vitali?

Are you kidding me? Marciano worked on heavy bags twice as big as the norm, and they went spinning. That man could punch through everything short of a brick wall. La Starza said that Marciano made his entire arm numb just from smacking at it

 

[djacobox372]

They were active, and only suddenly looked old after Marciano destroyed them. At the time, much like Tito's chances vs Hopkins, people lauded them as very dangerous and very capable. It's only in retrospect that we change things. Holmes took two years off but I personally never held that against Tyson or his win.

Destroyed them?

Marciano barely got by both walcott and charles. His power bailed him out of being outclassed by both.

Don't get me wrong, the Rock is one of my favorite fighters due to how he fought, but his accomplishments are pretty slim to put him an an ATG discussion. Retiring without a loss doesn't mean much when you retire with so few fights at the championship level.

 

[aries]

Are you kidding me? Marciano worked on heavy bags twice as big as the norm, and they went spinning. That man could punch through everything short of a brick wall. La Starza said that Marciano made his entire arm numb just from smacking at it

Yeah I'm sure 185lb Marciano punches just as hard as a modern hard puncher like 210lb Deontay Wilder. Yeah sure lol

 

[spacetime]

Destroyed them?

Marciano barely got by both walcott and charles. His power bailed him out of being outclassed by both.

Lennox Lewis's power bailed him out when he knocked out Frank Bruno, down on the scorecards and outboxed.

Lennox Lewis also had a very controversial decision win against Mercer that he would be lucky to draw, let alone win!

Meanwhile, The rock faced adversity against two hall of famers and prevailed both times..

 

[eternaldarkness]

I see him on the majority of all time great HW lists.

That said, his resume is sort of thin.

thin resume? not sure if serious.

 

[eternaldarkness]

Yeah I'm sure 185lb Marciano punches just as hard as a modern hard puncher like 210lb Deontay Wilder. Yeah sure lol

weight doesn't automatically equate to power. you should watch louis vs buddy baer.

 

[Deleted member 567059]

Because he fought in the weakest era of HW boxing

 

[TheGreatA]

Pound for pound Marciano was an all-time great.

The argument against him is his size. At 180-190 pounds people can legitimately question how he could have hung in there with the bigger guys. But when you think about the fact that he was about the same size as Ezzard Charles and Archie Moore, and that he beat them, he was undoubtedly an all-time great.

There are not too many men that weighed 180 to 190 pounds, who could've beaten both Archie Moore and Ezzard Charles.

He wasn't a 220 pound guy beating up on light heavyweights. In some cases he was outweighed by them.

 

[deucesarewild]

Destroyed them?

Marciano barely got by both walcott and charles. His power bailed him out of being outclassed by both.

Don't get me wrong, the Rock is one of my favorite fighters due to how he fought, but his accomplishments are pretty slim to put him an an ATG discussion. Retiring without a loss doesn't mean much when you retire with so few fights at the championship level.

Hello! I reread after I typed and was thinking "destroyed" was not the choice of word I wanted. Then I did not edit my post lol.

He rematched Walcott and Charles decisively and that is where I invariably landed on the aforementioned word.

Rocky did the best he could with what was available. Other champs did not do this so I do not hold them in as high regard.

 

[deucesarewild]

You'd pretty much have to have the luck of birth (in addition to actually being good) to be in an ATG HW conversation, since there are so few spots in boxing history that people agree on as "great eras."

 

[SandisLL]

Retiring without a loss doesn't mean much when you retire with so few fights at the championship level.

Means much because he was with brains to understand that prime years are gone. Until head too much beaten to become such smart as Ali after Zaire bout for example.

And what exceptional talent Ali had? Natural ability to be mobile like thousands lightweight boxers around. This gave him ability win opponents in HW until his head was enough processed to don't undestand that prime is ower. That's it.