Overrating the Past......? No way!

[X]

[
We know Rocky Marciano was tough and ETC, but he never met a great young fighter with good boxing skills like Holyfield, Jones, ETC. And he never met anyone who could hit as hard as someone like Bob Foster.

I dunno Ice ....... Roland LaStarza could box and Joe Louis (even an old Joe Louis) would hit a lot harded that Bob Foster ever could.

[rjj tszyu]

Rocky was great no doubt. Joe Louis too. I too believe they would cause anyone today a whole lot of shit! But why the hatred towards Evander? He was truly great also and a credit to the sport if you ask me. Yes he may have used his head a little excessively at times but a lot of fighters use rough house tactics. Also Evanders chin IMO was one of the greatest the sport has ever seen and certainly a match for Rockys. Rocky never got hit hard off anyone with Tyson-esque power. Louis was the biggest puncher he fought but he was way past it then. When Evander fought Tyson he took all Tyson could give and broke his heart.

I think Evander vs Marciano would be a great matchup prime for prime and a very hard one to call but Evander had a lot of the qualities that made Rocky great too. He didn't quite have the one punch KO power of Rocky but he had better technical boxing skill.

I am a huge fan of both men and it's a shame there are not more like either man in the sport but on their very best nights I'd go for an Evander decision win over Rocky!

[Master]

185lb Holyfield v Rocky, i would say Rocky in a war.

[ICB]

[
We know Rocky Marciano was tough and ETC, but he never met a great young fighter with good boxing skills like Holyfield, Jones, ETC. And he never met anyone who could hit as hard as someone like Bob Foster.

I dunno Ice ....... Roland LaStarza could box and Joe Louis (even an old Joe Louis) would hit a lot harded that Bob Foster ever could.

Yea but this is same Joe Louis who was totally outpointed by Ezzard Charles, and was knocked down 3 times in 2 fights vs Jersey Joe Walcott. With the 1st fight being a total robbery, and the 2nd fight was a come from behind KO with Joe Louis losing by a big margin.

Im not taking anything from Rocky Marciano, its not his fault his era was weak. But he wasn't no unbeatable force either, like this guy is making out.

[greynotsoold]

[
We know Rocky Marciano was tough and ETC, but he never met a great young fighter with good boxing skills like Holyfield, Jones, ETC. And he never met anyone who could hit as hard as someone like Bob Foster.

I dunno Ice ....... Roland LaStarza could box and Joe Louis (even an old Joe Louis) would hit a lot harded that Bob Foster ever could.

Yea but this is same Joe Louis who was totally outpointed by Ezzard Charles, and was knocked down 3 times in 2 fights vs Jersey Joe Walcott. With the 1st fight being a total robbery, and the 2nd fight was a come from behind KO with Joe Louis losing by a big margin.

Im not taking anything from Rocky Marciano, its not his fault his era was weak. But he wasn't no unbeatable force either, like this guy is making out.

You know, Ezzard Charles was/is one of the top fighters of all time. Check his record: a definite top 5 at middle and light heavy, then he won the hw title and defended it 8 times. Being outpointed by a guy that smart and that skilled is far from meaning 'you suck.'
Joe Walcott, in my opinion, was not a great fighter. But he was extremely cute and clever in the ring. He caught an aging Louis with some sneak right hands and knocked him down; not huge knockdowns, but he dropped him. Lonnie Smith, 140lbs, in the 80s, used some of those same moves to get a title belt. Walcott, to get back to it, was smart and slick, yet you make it sound like being behind on the cards to him is an insult.
Marciano had definite flaws, the most notable being that he started the game late in life. He did have, however, a great trainer that brought him along well and turned him into a force to be reckoned with. And the thing is, he was, apparently, an unbeatable force because nobody ever beat him. He overwhelmed guys that were smarter than him, and he was smarter than he was given credit for being.
I know I'm getting a rep here for being the senile crank that always sticks up for the old-timers...but let me say this. Modern boxing and modern boxing fans discount the value of intelligence and skill in the ring and over-value physicality. That is why guys like Moore fight until 50, competitively, and other guys of more recent vintage are "shot" at a relatively young age.

[ICB]

[
We know Rocky Marciano was tough and ETC, but he never met a great young fighter with good boxing skills like Holyfield, Jones, ETC. And he never met anyone who could hit as hard as someone like Bob Foster.

I dunno Ice ....... Roland LaStarza could box and Joe Louis (even an old Joe Louis) would hit a lot harded that Bob Foster ever could.

Yea but this is same Joe Louis who was totally outpointed by Ezzard Charles, and was knocked down 3 times in 2 fights vs Jersey Joe Walcott. With the 1st fight being a total robbery, and the 2nd fight was a come from behind KO with Joe Louis losing by a big margin.

Im not taking anything from Rocky Marciano, its not his fault his era was weak. But he wasn't no unbeatable force either, like this guy is making out.

You know, Ezzard Charles was/is one of the top fighters of all time. Check his record: a definite top 5 at middle and light heavy, then he won the hw title and defended it 8 times. Being outpointed by a guy that smart and that skilled is far from meaning 'you suck.'
Joe Walcott, in my opinion, was not a great fighter. But he was extremely cute and clever in the ring. He caught an aging Louis with some sneak right hands and knocked him down; not huge knockdowns, but he dropped him. Lonnie Smith, 140lbs, in the 80s, used some of those same moves to get a title belt. Walcott, to get back to it, was smart and slick, yet you make it sound like being behind on the cards to him is an insult.
Marciano had definite flaws, the most notable being that he started the game late in life. He did have, however, a great trainer that brought him along well and turned him into a force to be reckoned with. And the thing is, he was, apparently, an unbeatable force because nobody ever beat him. He overwhelmed guys that were smarter than him, and he was smarter than he was given credit for being.
I know I'm getting a rep here for being the senile crank that always sticks up for the old-timers...but let me say this. Modern boxing and modern boxing fans discount the value of intelligence and skill in the ring and over-value physicality. That is why guys like Moore fight until 50, competitively, and other guys of more recent vintage are "shot" at a relatively young age.

Im not saying anything like that, all im saying is that Joe Louis was showing major signs of slowing down. And those fights proved it, and by the time he fought Rocky Marciano he was completely washed up.

Ezzard Charles was a great fighter, but he was better at Light Heavyweight. Where he beat Moore, Burley, Maxim, multiple times.

And again when Ezzard Charles fought Rocky Marciano he was on the downslide, and went on to lose 13 fights after the Rocky Marciano fights.

The very fact that he went the distance with Rocky Marciano, and gave him such a hard fight when he was past his best. Shows how great he is, and prime for prime at catchweight he would of won IMO.

[X]

Modern boxers will likely be better conditioned than old timers, plus (since advances in nutrition and also holding the weigh in 24 hours before the fight) they are all much bigger than their counterparts when they actually get in the ring ....... today's middleweights are definitely not middleweights when they get in the ring, which sort of defeats the object for me ........ but the old timers had better technique and experience because they fought so much more often. A world champion should not be a flawed fighter, or someone we don;t know how good they are, but modern fighters build a carefully protected record and can win one of a meaningless proliferation of 'world' titles.

The old fighters were generally tougher than modern fighters as the fights were longer, could be dirtier and the refs hardly ever stopped them. There are always a few throwbacks who are teak tough even nowadays, but I think the 'average' has dropped.

[BIG H]

You gotta look at facts. Is there any sport you can think of where the guys from the fifties, sixties and seventies are the best ever? (apart from Pele )

So, it would be odd to expect that boxing is the exception, especially when boxing is probably the sport where advances in all things to do with physicality are most utilized.

Having said that, I still think SRR is the GOAT and Wille Pepp isn't far behind So maybe I'm talking shite

[brocktonblockbust]

Of course nobody with "Tyson-esque" power ever fought Marciano---its because only Marciano had Tyson-esque power back then. And nobody could beat him. And nobody WOULD beat him, unless that person outweighted The Rock of Rocks by a minimum of 30 pounds and outreached him even worse than he was already outreached, and towered over him even more toweringly than he was already towered over.

Rocco was the shidt, and that's it folks. And dont go tryin to put him in there with Lennox Lewis-sized fighters. Would we ever ask a Sugar Ray Leonard to fight a 200 pound Michael Spinks? Because thats about the size difference, and clearly isnt a fair fight.

[marbleheadmaui]

You gotta look at facts. Is there any sport you can think of where the guys from the fifties, sixties and seventies are the best ever? (apart from Pele )

So, it would be odd to expect that boxing is the exception, especially when boxing is probably the sport where advances in all things to do with physicality are most utilized.

Having said that, I still think SRR is the GOAT and Wille Pepp isn't far behind So maybe I'm talking shite

Actually it isn't odd and boxing IS the exception. Why? (in no order)
1. Weaker raw material. 50ish years ago good athletes really only had two ways to make big money in sports. Baseball and boxing. Now athletes can make money in literally dozens of sports they couldn't back then.
2. Half as many fighters. The sport is just a fraction of the size it once was. Most other sports are larger in terms of participants.
3. Fighters fight half as often. Humans get better the more they do something. Doing something less frequently necessarily means less expertise. Other sports are having longer and longer seasons and more and more practices, hence better performance.
4. Declining resources. Boxing gyms are a dying commodity, 90% are gone.
5. Boxing doesn't participate in the size explosion (except at heavy). Basketball is better because point guards are now 6'4 rather than 6' tall. Swimmers are much larger than they used to be, so are sprinters, football players, baseball players etc. But boxing is weight restricted. You simply cannot take a guy fit enough to fight 15 rounds at a rapid pace at 147 and add muscle and still have him be 147. The body simply doesn't work that way. If it did? We'd have a pile of 6'2 welters walking around. But we don't.

There is more, but you get the idea.