(Just for the record, DC, Ali never fought Ingemar Johannson.)

If you examine and compare their records closely, you will see that Marciano was nothing more than a club fighter, really, who fought most of his early bouts – nd many of his later ones - in and around the New England area - mostly Providence, RI - against a series of nobodies.

He didn't receive any real national recognition until his fight against Joe Louis, who was many years past his prime and only fighting because he owed the IRS a huge amount of money.

When Marciano beat Joe Walcott and Ezzard Charles, both fighters were well into their 30’s, and you could argue that the only heavyweight of note in his prime that Marciano beat was Archie Moore, who was really just an over-stuffed light heavyweight.

Clay/Ali, meanwhile, beat just about every single heavyweight of note from 1963 until 1978, and you left quite a few of them off your list of Ali's credible opponents.

Doug Jones, Henry Cooper (twice), Sonny Liston (twice), Floyd Patterson (twice), George Chuvalo (twice), Cleveland Williams, Ernie Terrell, Zora Foley, Jerry Quarry (twice), Oscar Bonavena, Joe Frazier (won 2 out of 3), Jimmy Ellis, Ken Norton (lost their first fight, then won the rematch), George Foreman, Ron Lyle, Ernie Shavers, and Leon Spinks (lost their first fight and won the rematch).

Many of those fights took place during the time when you sy that "In reality after the Patterson fight it was not until 1971 that he again faced a reputable opponent in Smokin Joe Frazier."

In fact, during that period he fought and beat Chuvalo, Cooper, Williams, Terrell, Foley, Quarry, and Bonavena, who were the top heavyweights of that time period and all considered reputable opponents.

Liston, who was the champion, Paterson, who was the former champ, and Williams, Terrell, Frazier, Ellis, Norton, and especially Foreman, were all considered outstandingfighters – not that the others weren’t important contenders - and most were in their prime or close to it when Ali beat them.

Most of all, though, is the fact that Ali was much bigger, stronger, and faster than Marciano, who I see as comparable in style to Joe Frazier, only a bit smaller, I think.

I think that the main reason Marciano receives the credit that he does is because he retired undefeated.

If he had lost a flukey decision or something in a four-rounder early in his career and retired at 48-1 instead of 49-0, people wouldn’t give him a second thought in a discussion about who the greatest ever was, and he would’ve been regarded the same way we think of Joe Frazier: A “know no fear” slugger, who won a lot of fights with punching power and heart, but wasn’t really that great a fighter.

All he proved to me by retiring undefeated was that he was perhaps a little bit smarter than most fighters before and after him, not necessarily that he was any better.