No. He was underrated. He was not the greatest heavyweight however he was top 10. He did the most with the least. He was small 5-10 185 pounds. He also had short arms. The things that do not show up on the stats are as follows heart and determination. Rocky Marciano had both. He also was well conditioned. If you fought him you better be ready to go 15 solid rounds. True the competition of his era was below average and that is certainly held against him. Yes he could not beat the large heavyweights of the 1970s Ali Holmes and Foreman. However he is still great. He also to his credit did not come out of retirement and finished with a record of 49-0 with 43 knockouts awesome.

He wasn't overrated, he was an amazing fighter and easily a top 10 all time, but I have seen some people say Marciano could have beat a Prime Joe Louis, a prime Ali, and even prime Tyson, some people overrate him too much, Marciano would have never ever beat these guys.

His punching power is the most overrated punching power ever in boxing history. Just read this claim from Wikipedia about his punching power: "Marciano's punch was tested and it was featured in the December 1963 issue of Boxing Illustrated: Marciano's knockout blow packs more explosive energy than an armour-piercing bullet and represents as much energy as would be required to spot lift 1000 pounds one foot off the ground." That statement means that Rocky could have killed every human being on the planet earth with one punch! Now listen to me, pal, I've searched for that article and never found him. They didn't write that in a issue of Boxing Illustrated, they wrote that once in a book. And I mean just one lame book, without citation, without proof, which created a myth that is now spread all over the internet. That claim is just nuts and rubbish. Fact is that Marciano became his punching power from a self made 300 lbs punching bag. That's it. Nothing else gave him his power(except his genetics of course, but as Jack Dempsey said: Hard punchers are made, not born.) A similar punching bag(same weight, 300 lbs) was made for Mike Tyson by Cus D'Amato, his trainer, when he was JUST 16 YEARS OLD!!!! This means that Tyson had already Marcianos punching power at the age of 16! OK OK OK, Marciano had this brutal knockout over Walcott(most brutal ever). But Marciano himself said that he though it would not have hurt him that much. When you look at the knockout, you can see that it was the accuracy behind the punch that made it that hard, not Marcianos power. In fact, I've hardly seen such an accurate punch to the jaw as this. There's a nerve point at the jaw and when you hit it, you can knock a guy out with much less power. Consider it a lucky punch, since Marciano was never a one punch knock out artist(except with an old and washed up Joe Louis). Archie Moore said in an interview that Marciano didn't hit him that hard, he fought guys that hit harder than Marciano did(and Moore only fought what we would consider middle- or at highest light heavyweights), the problem with Marciano was that he constantly kept coming after you and after you've punched him once, he had punched you 10 times. Then there's the statement of Ali that said that Marciano hurt him hard just by clowning around during the super fight. But Ali never said how many times Rocky hit him. I think Rocky was dangerous because of his stamina, not his punching power alone(of course he hit hard, but nowhere at the level of a Wlad Klitschko or a Mike Tyson). Of course Marciano fought only washed up greats, but don't blame him for that, it was not Rockys fault, it was just the wrong time to prove his talents. As for the Foreman and Ali argument, Ali said that Rocky would have been even with him, if they had fought prime for prime(and that means alot when a guy like Ali says such a thing). I calculated this through and through. Prime Ali vs prime Marciano. And I'm a huge fan of both! First I was sure that Marciano was such fit, that he would have outlasted Ali. But then I found out what would have been the key in this fight: Marcianos chin. Compare this fight with the Ali-Cooper fight. Henry could've knocked the 60's Ali out, because Alis chin and defense wasn't developed by that time. The reason Ali won was Henrys chin/that he bleeded fast. Same with Rocky here. Rocky had a fast bleeding chin and his chin is questionable(was dropped by washed up Moore, Walcott and Charles destroyed his face completely). And Ali would use this against Marciano. He would run right after him and trying to beat the sh*t out of him. Marciano would never give up, but his face would start to bleed and the referee would stop the fight. As for Foreman: A prime Foreman could knock Joe Frazier out, 6 times in a row, while Fraziers chin and heart were above Marcianos. I rate Rocky still in the Top Ten Heavyweight Champions, considering him a light heavyweight.

Ali by 4th round TKO

Foreman by 3rd round KO

Yes.

Does this look overrated to you?