Quote Originally Posted by landmine950
Could it be? ...Naw....ridiculous......or is it??

It's very hard to compare records of old time boxers to modern boxers
Things are very different today.
Old time fighters fought as a job. Except for a select few, Low pay per fight.
This meant that for a guy to be a professional he had to fight lots!
every month to put food on the table. On the average about
2- 3 times as much as a modern fighters.
Most guys had regular day jobs and fought on the side. Few professional trainers, no TV revenue etc.

Can any meaningful numbers crunching be done to create some kind of statistical comparison?

Part of the problem is that some of their opponents records are not available. Marciano's due to age and Valuev's due to the collapse and disorganisation in Russion sports at the start of his career.
Also.
The first fights in a fighters career are most often against easy fighters so that the fighter can develop skill and build confidence and as such are not a genuine "test" of his ability and really add nothing to his record as far as legitimacy goes.

Marciano has a couple and Valuev about 5 opponents who's records are unknown and appear as 0-0-0

Let's look at each fighters last say..25 fights..a time when they should be well into decent "real" fights

Marciano's last 25 opponents had a combined record of

1164 Wins 332 Losses 68 Draws

That gives a Win/fight ratio of 74.42%


Valuev's last 25 opponents have a combined record of

539 Wins 103 Losses and 19 Draws

For a Win/Fight ratio of 81.54%


Also as for which of the 2 groups would be/have been harder to beat and maintain a undefeated record against?

Marciano's last 25 guys had 332 losses or an average of 13.28 per fighter

Valuev's have 103 losses or an average of only 4.12 losses per fighter


For their last 10 fights?

Marciano 114 Losses 11.4 per fighter
Valuev 26 Losses 2.6 per fighter

Conclusion? The guys that Marciano built his record on DID WORSE
against the fighters of his day, than Valuev's opponents have done against modern day fighters

IE Valuev has fought a better caliber of fighers

81.5% win ratio vs 74.4% win ratio


Thoughts??
Please,...Do try and post intelligent and logical arguments and comments, not broad sweeping statements like "all fighters today suck" or other such nonsense


P.S. just for fun..
Here's a pic of Valuev vs John Ruiz who is 6'2 1/2" and weighs 240
Marciano was 5'10" and 190 and as you can see had thick legs.




You have a well thought out and intelligent argument. I don't have the time to go on google and argue your stats. I do like your post though. It is creative and fun to talk about. As for me personally I wouldn't even start to compare the two simply because Marciano fought everybody and beat everybody in his era. Regardless of the stats and records Marciano didn't duck anyone. And anytime Marciano had a contraversal or even a close competative fight (like with wolcott) he always gave a immediate rematch. When was the last time Valuev has done something like that? That answer is never. I would of loved to see him give John Ruiz and Larry Donald rematches. What do you think? Oh well I guess I'm kind of getting off the subject, since the whole arguement is who had the better record. Not who was the better fighter. By now I'm sure you know who I think was the better fighter and why. (I'm not going to say greater fighter) I'm sure you too agree that Marciano was the better of the two. But as far as the fighters records go, you do have a legit point. Great post!