Prime Time Rex Layne

[Marciano Frazier]

I have seen Layne against Walcott, Satterfield, Marciano, and two fights with Charles. He showed an excellent jab and a quick and accurate right. I thought he was surprisingly quick and tended to get off first even against top men. He certainly had a fighting heart. His defense was a real weakness, though. He was easy to hit. As his career went on, his chin seemed to weaken, a trend not unique to Layne among wide open fighters. The same happened to Tex Cobb and Willi Besmanoff, among others that I can think of.

I think the weakening-chin thing is a pretty common product of the kind of face-first, wide-open style Layne exemplified. As you note, Cobb's chin, which had once seemed downright unbelieveable, weakened to such a degree late in his career that Dee Collier wiped him out in one round. Ricardo Mayorga is another example I would take note of of a guy with a kind of macho style who ate everything on the chin and seemed to be virtually impossible to hurt for a while, then started outright crumbling as the beatings accumulated. Layne was known for a very strong chin in his career prior to the Marciano fight (see the "coconut-like noggin" reference in the May, 1951 RING article I sent SuzieQ and he posted above), but after having suffered that brutal knockout and engaged in a number of bloody fights where he took gobs of punishment (Satterfield, Walcott, Charles I, etc.), he seemed to be concussed to the point where it became easier and easier to concuss him again.

[BIG DEE]

BIG DEE HERE= You have all your front teeth taken off and the nubs with one punch after taking a beating from a guy who never got tired and never lost his punch no matter how many rds you fight. People look at that black and white film and can`t see what shape Layne was in at the time of the knock-out. Layne had a terrible cut over one eye that they would have stopped today way before the KO in the 6th rd happened. If it would have been stopped then maybe Rex Layne would have been thought more of today as he would have been able to comeback from the loss to Marciano instead of
being destroyed like he was. IN HIS PRIME REX LAYNE WAS A GOOD HEAVYWEIGHT WHO WAS A TOUGH FIGHT FOR ANYONE. AFTER THR MARCIANO FIGHT HE WAS NEVER THE SAME AS HE WAS GUNSHY AND DIDN`T
TAKE THE SAME PUNCH AS BEFORE. IF YOU EVER SEE A PICTURE OF THE CUT IT`S REALLY NASTY, MAYBE 2 TO 3" LONG

[SuzieQ49]

Great discussion in this thread