Whose 49-0 is truly greater? Mayweather or Marciano?

[IronDanHamza]

Why is this a good defense? He wasn't accidentally never an underdog. The fact that he wasn't the underdog to Marciano meant that there were people that expected him to win at the time. They saw what he had left in previous fights, they knew that Marciano was the far younger fight who was arguably in or near his physical prime, and they still expected Louis to be more likely to win. Comments in this thread are exaggerating the extent to which he no longer had it. Of course this wasn't the Joe Louis that fought Max Schmeling, who is arguably one of the best if not the best HW to ever box, but this was still a dam good fighter. Now he wasn't a monstruous favorite, but he didn't have to be in order to demonstrate my point.

This reminds me of the May/Pac situation in a way. Now I want to make it clear that by no means was this fight as significant as Mayweather/Pacquiao, nor was Joe Louis in anyway a top P4P fighter the way that Pacquiao was and is. But Pacquiao was a slight underdog to Mayweather. That wasn't an accident - it represented the fact that there were many people that felt Pacquiao demonstrated that he had the ability to win the fight. Additionally, Pacquiao entered that fight as the top WW under Mayweather by virtually all accounts, and by most as a top 3ish P4P fighter. Then after he lost, people started acting like he was way too washed up to compete all of a sudden, in order to diminish Mayweather's victory. This is similar to what is happening with Joe Louis in this thread, in that we are rewriting history here to diminish the quality of Marciano's victory. People at the time, that had saw Joe Louis in fights leading up to this one, did not feel he was as washed up as y'all are claiming he was. Joe Louis was seen as someone who had something left going into the fight, and in fact was one of the top rated heavyweights before the fight.

For example, these The Ring Magazine HW ratings were made at the end of 1950:

(SOURCE: http://boxrec.com/media/index.php/Th...yweight--1950s)

In other words, despite that he was no longer the Joe Louis of old, he was STILL considered by those at the time to be the best HW fighter shy of the champion Ezzard Charles, to whom he lost to that year. THAT's the guy that Marciano beat. He didn't beat the legendary Joe Louis that fought in the 30s and 40s, but he still beat someone who was by The Ring's account the top contender at the time and a long reigning former champion. That is why it absolutely is a big win.

Because it was a little different back then, Louis was so loved by everyone.

But honestly? It's not as bad as people make out in all honesty. Louis was finished and a shell of himself but it was still decent.

[Kuyukut]

fraud IV record of 49 - 0... with more than half of his wins are certified snoozers can't be considered as great wins but i'd say the best word to describe his undefeated record is... forgettable wins.

[NChristo]

Louis was only a 6/5 favourite

People at the time, that had saw Joe Louis in fights leading up to this one, did not feel he was as washed up as y'all are claiming he was

The people around him had been wanting him to stop for a long time, Marciano just put the nail in the coffin of his career.

[RightJabLikeZab]

ACtually from what I've seen there was a hell of a lot of clinching back then.

Plenty clinching, moving around the ring, rabbit punching, punching people while they were on one knee.

[therealpugilist]

lmao....Rocky Marciano never beat 10 top ten contenders lol


Mayweather is 26-0 in title fights...Beat ten lineal champions and dozens of top ten contenders...Several of them were top 3



Mayweather>Marciano who has one of the thinnest resumes for any heavyweight champion considered an ATG

[therealpugilist]

fraud IV record of 49 - 0... with more than half of his wins are certified snoozers can't be considered as great wins but i'd say the best word to describe his undefeated record is... forgettable wins.

Getting battered and being fun to watch doesn't = greatness