Quote Originally Posted by Punisher136
This is a tough pick. You have the best technical heavyweight versus the all time worst technical heavyweight. Ali had a tough body and if we're talking prime vs. prime here, ali would easily move around the ring against marciano. One of the greatest factors into ali's defense was not his upper body movement but the fact that people were afraid to commit to punches because when they threw a punch they had to worry about his jab. Marciano didn't give a damn how fast or how many times you hit him he made it apparent before every fight that he was expecting to get hit a fair amount of times but he was 100% convicted to every punch he threw. Marciano could catch ali several times and win on points generated by knockdowns, ali could win on cuts, ali could win a one sided decision, marciano could throw a twin punch to the greatest punch ever thrown and end the thing in one punch at any time.

All that said, prime for prime, Marciano wins a very very close decision. Neither man was ever stopped (ali wasn't stopped until after he had parkinsons) and both had a lot of heart but if you're a boxer, you're nightmare scenario of an opponent is a guy that hits with tremendous force, has an inability to be hurt, and has the stamina to throw bomb after bomb round after round.
Walcott was outboxing Marciano for 13 rounds i don't see why Ali couldn't do same Ali in 60s is too agile for the small and slow Marciano.