Aka Rocky Marciano aka The Rock from Brockton.
I first came across the name Rocky Marciano at the end of the 60s when adults in my household were discussing who was the greatest heavyweight of all time. In 1969 someone came up with the brilliant idea and feeding a computer with as much data on both of the fighters and letting the computer decided the outcome of what became known as “The Super Fight”.
At this point in time, both boxers were the only undefeated heavyweight champions. So there was significant interest in the outcome. Both Maricano and Ali agreed to be filmed sparring and 75 1 minute clips were filmed to recreate a number of possible outcoems that the computer might come up with.
Marciano hadn’t been in the ring for 14 years since retiring with a 49-0 record, he lost 50lbs (23kgs) in weight and wore a toupee so that he looked as he did close to his prime.
Well who won the “The Super Fight”, well it depends on where you saw the film on January 20th, 1970.
In North America Marciano won, in Europe Ali won, so you have to wonder whether after all that they really used a computer and just decided to go with what they thought the audiences wanted. The background to this was that between June 67 and Oct 70 Ali was banned from boxing.
Sadly Marciano never saw the finished film as he died in a plane crash on the eve of his 46th birthday. Born Rocco Francis Marchegiano on September 1, 1923, Rocky was grew up in Brockton, Massachusetts, hence his nickname – “The Brockton Blockbuster”.
Marciano didn’t fit the typical statue of a heavyweight, being shorter and having a shorter reach than many of his opponents, but is was this that gave him the edge. He crouched down to reduce his target area and was able to punch up with great force. By comparison, a punch down has less force. The only two boxers to put Marciano down were Walcott and Moore who were a similar size to him.
Given that Ali was over 4 inches taller than Marciano and his reach was 10 inches longer, it is very possible based on his success against taller fighter, Marciano might well have been the greatest of all time.
Probably the famous fight of his career was the one for the World Heavyweight Championship against Jersey Joe Walcott in Philadelphia on September 23, 1952.
It was Walcott 2nd defence of his title. In the first round, Walcott sent Marciano to the canvas. Walcott outboxed Marciano throughout the fight and going into the 13th round, he was leading on all the judges scorecards.
In the rematch the following year, Marciano took just 2 minutes and 25 seconds to win by a knockout in the first round. At the time there was some controversy over whether the fight was a fix, because it ended so quickly. Walcott’s purse was a double that of Marciano’s at $250,000, so rather then get punished he took a dive. Many of the crowd didn’t see the punch clearly. But maybe that one punch hit him so hard that he didn’t really want to get hit again. He was down for 12 seconds and never fought again.
The fight against the legendary Joe Louis was known as “The Passing of the Torch Match”. Louis who held the championship from 1937 to 1949, had retired but came back into the ring for financial reasons. In 1951 past his best Marciano knocked Louis through the ropes in the 8th round and set Marciano up as a title contender.
Of his 49 wins, only 6 were on the judges decision. The character of Rocky Balbao was based on Rocky Marciano.
“As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. this applies to all links on this post.”
Rocky Marciano, books, prints and videos on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca.