This is a story from the last century, when boxing aroused passions perhaps forgotten today and, especially in the US, it was almost a religion, with its gods out of misery, but also a whole dark hellish world of gambling and mafia. Among the legendary names that conquered the heavyweight scepter, an already mythical name stood out. This September 1st marks the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Rocky Marciano, the only undefeated world heavyweight champion. His unexpected death in a plane crash, one day after his 46th birthday, finished off the legend.
The son of a couple of Italian emigrants, Pierino, originally from Abruzzo, and Pasqualina, from Campania, Rocco Marchegiano was born and raised in Brockton, Massachusetts, where his father found work in a shoe factory. Rocco soon began to look for life. As a dishwasher, porter, errand boy… and he hardened his body to unsuspected limits. He was never a fine stylist. At the same time he tried his luck in baseball and American football, but it was in the army, after being mobilized in 1943 and transferred to Wales to take charge of transporting supplies, when he discovered boxing and its immense possibilities shone. He hit and fit. A rock.
Back in the United States, he went to a gym and was picked up by a talent scout, Charly Goldman, who was impressed by both the new fighter’s strength and his complete lack of technique. “This diamond has to be polished,” he said to himself, in an expression repeated so many times and so many times unsuccessful in boxing. In his early days as a professional he looked for a more effective pseudonym and above all with a more comfortable pronunciation and that’s where Rocky Marciano (said in Italian, Marchano) was born.
After fighting in the amateur field, his debut as a professional came on July 12, 1948, at the age of 24. He won by KO, and by the same fast track he prevailed in his next fifteen bouts. Always before the fourth round, nine times without exhausting the first. He was a devastating spark. Why do I need style and technique? He wondered to the despair of managers and trainers who could not change his only method: hitting.
Marciano never lost. As his rivals improved, he alternated victories by KO with some, few, on points. In May 1949, after 16 consecutive victories by KO, Don Mogard, at the Providence Auditorium in Rhode Island, was the first to stand until the end. In July 1951, after 35 fights (always undefeated) his fight against Rey Layne was broadcast for the first time on American television, from Madison Square Garden in New York. Layne collapsed in the sixth.
In the same New York setting, on October 26, 1951, the rival was of enormous prestige, none other than Joe Louis, the Detroit Bomber, world champion from 1937 to 1949. That was Louis’s last fight, defeated by KO in the eighth round before 18,000 spectators. Only three rivals beat Joe Louis in his entire career: Max Schmeling, Ezzard Charles and Rocky Marchano, who acknowledged that a victory (it was actually a beating) had never hurt him so much, because it was his childhood idol.
After another four victories, all before the limit, on September 23, 1952 came the big day for Marciano: the fight for the world heavyweight title, against Jersey Joe Walcott. It was one of the toughest matches of Rocky’s career. He fell to the canvas in the first round and as the rounds progressed it was apparent that Walcott would win on points. Finally, in the thirteenth, the KO came. Rocky Marciano was the new world champion. Eight months later, in his first title defense and again against Walcott, everything was different. Marciano KOed his rival in the first round. He lasted 2m25s.
At the age of 32, married and with a daughter, Rocky Marciano announced his retirement from the rings. He was on April 27, 1956, after defending the title six times. He was world champion for four years. His last defense was against Archie Moore, who had been a light heavyweight world champion and later a film and television actor (he appeared in the popular Perry Mason) and a successful trainer with George Foreman. Marciano kissed the canvas for 4 seconds, but recovered and then knocked down his rival in the sixth round, in the eighth (the bell saved Moore) and without remission in the ninth. He hung up the gloves on him after 49 fights and 49 wins (43 by KO).
Marciano died on August 31, 1969, in the failed landing of a private plane that was taking him to Des Moines, Iowa. The pilot and the two occupants lost their lives on the spot and when they found Marciano still firmly strapped in his seat, The press of the time recalled the reaction of the manager of another great champion, Stanley Ketchel, shot to death at the age of 24 in 1910: “Dead? Count to ten, he’ll get up,” he said.
A year after the accident, the most famous boxer was already Muhammad Ali. His was one of the greatest compliments to the figure of Marciano: “To show that I am the greatest of all time, I should have been able to fight with Rocky Marciano. He had no style, he was a bull, a beast of combat, impossible to leave him on the canvas, he was constantly on top of you, hitting everywhere. It would have been a war and I can’t say if he would have won it.”
