Is Rocky Marciano as respected as he should be?

[buge]

I don't know how you can see someone retire, come back literally to pay the IRS, get a string of 8 wins against fighters who were not the best of the time, and then still think it's a good win. Just look at his body, he was clearly past it and out of shape. If Wladimir Klitschko came back today due to financial issues, and fights 8 lower tier HW's and wins and then fights Wilder and gets KO'ed...does that make it a good win even though everyone knows Wlad is too old and way past his best? Literally no fan in the world would care about that win. Not even Wilder fans would see that as a legit win.

Boxing is prize fighting, they fight for money. Whether that money is for their family, for *******, or for the IRS makes no difference to me.

Note that Wlad would be 45, not 37 like Louis was vs. Marciano, so people would have more skepticism, but if Wlad came back and fought 7 lower tier guys in as many months for warm up fights and then KO'd Anthony Joshua (the #1 contender to Fury), he'd certainly be credible. If Wlad then lost to Wilder, sure it should be counted as a good win for Wilder. Wlad would have proven he was still good by KO'ing AJ.

Wilder's hypothetical win over Wlad at that point wouldn't count the same as a win over prime Wlad, but it would still be a good win.

If a guy has proven he's talented in the ring by recent victories over top contenders, that's what it takes.

[ShoulderRoll]

As time goes on, guys from generations further and further back fade from collective memory. No one alive saw Rock fight. You can only surmise so much from looking at grainy film food and reading books; the context just isn't as strong.

It's the same reason you don't ever see Antonio Moreno, Dolores del Rio, or Paola Negri at the top of great actors lists. Who? Exactly.

The funny thing is that the generation that saw Marciano fight didn't think he was all that great.

It's only with the more recent generations that he has become overrated and a sacred cow that you can't criticize.

[ShoulderRoll]

Ring Magazine founder Nat Fleischer wrote that in terms of boxing ability Marciano was "crude, wild swinging, awkward, and missed heavily. In his bout with light heavyweight champion Archie Moore, for example, he missed almost two-thirds of the fifty odd punches he tossed when he had Archie against the ropes, a perfect target for the kill."

http://coxscorner.tripod.com/rocky.html