By Erik Schmidt: I often wonder how would the great Rocky Marciano (49-0, 43 KOs) do against today’s heavyweights. It’s perhaps even more of a question now than ever due to the lack of talent and interest in the heavyweight division. It’s been a decade since the heavyweight division had a champion – Mike Tyson – that fans were interested in, and since that time the quality of the fighters has dropped off dramatically, along with naturally the interest in the division as a whole. Many people say that it’s impossible for fighters of different generations to fight each other due to the size differences, the more advanced training techniques, and the better nutrition available now compared to the 40s and the 50s, when Marciano was at the top of the sport.

However, I don’t buy into all that, mainly because I see a lot of really poor trainers and a lot of heavyweights with bad diets and poor conditioning, and if anything, the nutrition and training is worse today than it was before. The main difference now, however, is that there’s a larger pool of people to get fighters from due to many of the other countries now having fighters that have turned professional. Despite that, the division still is in the worst shape now than it has been in years. So for this reason, I think it’s important to throw out the belief that you can’t compare different eras.

So how would Marciano, a fighter who weighed little more than 188 lbs due against the hulking heavyweight champions like Samuel Peter, Wladimir Klitschko and Ruslan Chagaev? Remarkably well, as far as I’m concerned due to a number of factors which I’ll discuss below, fighter by fighter.

1.) Wladimir Klitschko – (50-3, 44 KOs) Of the three heavyweight champions, one would naturally assume that the 6’6” 244 lbs Klitschko would simply have too much size and skill for the small 5’10” 188 lb Marciano to deal with adequately without resorting to clinching constantly to try and shut down Klitschko’s offense. However, that’s just not the case because Marciano was never one to stay on the outside against bigger fighters, and believe me, he fought most of his career against larger heavyweights like Joe Louis and Jersey Joe Walcott, to name just a couple.

In each case, Marciano would quickly work his way into the inside and pound away at his larger opponents with short, sledgehammer like blows. Marciano was type of fighter that could get maximum power without a foot or two windup with which to throw the punch. Unlike Klitschko, who needs a lot of room to get the most power on his shots. On the inside, Klitschko is basically helpless. Unable to throw uppercuts, he mainly just holds on when a fighter gets close and waits until the referee separates him and his opponent. With Marciano, however, he’s deadly accurate with his punches, so that even if he were only able to get off a few shots before Klitschko grabbed him in a clinch, Marciano wouldn’t miss with his shots and would likely drop Klitschko after a very short period of time. With Klitschko’s weak chin, Marciano would have it easy

2.) Samuel Peter – (30-1, 23 KOs) This would a little tougher fight for Marciano than the Klitschko bout, because Peter, who weighs a hefty 250 lbs, would likely use his size to try and muscle Marciano around on the inside. With a weight advantage of around 60 lbs, Peter would indeed be able to throw Marciano around, yet he’d also be equally vulnerable to Marciano’s greater accuracy and ability to move better on the inside due to the advantage of not having to lug around as much blubber as Peter. At the same time, Marciano was roughly the same height as Peter, and good at placing his shots.

If he found that Peter was throwing rabbit shots in their bouts, something that Peter sometimes accidently does in his bouts, Marciano wouldn’t waste any time in responding in kind. That would be a major problem for Peter, in that he has had chin problems since being hurt by Wladimir Klitschko in their 2005 bout. Peter’s chin was further exposed by Jameel McCline, who knocked Peter down three times in their recent October 2007 bout. I see Marciano being way too active and unrelenting for Peter, who would tire out badly under the pace that Marciano would put on him and he’d end up getting stopped within 6 or 7 rounds.

3.) Ruslan Chagaev – (24-0-1, 17 KOs) This would perhaps be the easiest of the champions for Marciano to beat, mainly because Chagaev, in terms of actual muscle, weighs little more than Marciano’s 188 lbs. Though Chagaev’s listed weight is 229 lbs, he’s around 30-40 lbs overweight. If you trim off all the fat that Chagaev is carrying on his body, he’s really no bigger than Marciano. Clearly, he’s not in the same league as Marciano in the power department, with most of Chagaev’s knockout victories occurring early in his career before he started fighting A & B level fighters. He mostly fights in spurts, sometimes throwing quick shots and then running away and staying on the outside moving all around the ring, wasting clock. Marciano would have nothing of these stalling tactics and would come right after Chagaev, forcing him to fight three minutes of every round instead of slacking his way through his