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.