Marciano v Walcott 2 Revisited

There was a rematch clause. But that was basically tossed out.

In their first meeting, the fight was shown in theaters, not on television. Walcott received $138,000 plus 40 percent of the sales (which turned out to be $50,000) and Marciano received $69,000 (half of what Walcott made) plus 20 percent of the sales (which came to $25,000).

If Marciano won, which he did, the contract called for a rematch within 90 days and each fighter would get 30 percent of the theater sales.

Then Walcott briefly retired for a day, and then he said he wanted a rematch. Weill said they'd give him one, but they wouldn't fight him in 90 days.

Then Jim Norris - the head of the IBC - announced the fight would be held in Chicago at Chicago Stadium (which he owned). Walcott's manager didn't want the fight in Chicago and wouldn't sign.

Then Norris announced that if Walcott wouldn't sign, Marciano would fight someone else.

Then Walcott's manager had a heart attack or something like that. And Walcott said he wouldn't sign until his manager recovered.

Then the NBA said Marciano had to defend against someone by April - turning up the heat on Walcott to sign, which Walcott did, still for the 30-30 split in revenues (according to newspapers).

Then it was announced the fight would be shown on home television (and if anyone wanted to pay money to see it they could watch it at a few theaters in 3D, which turned out to be a mess).

As the fight approached, it was reported Walcott was guaranteed $250,000. After the fight, papers reported Marciano's share (which came out of the gate and TV and Radio ad sales) came to $166,000 - before Weill took his half.

Again ... Why was Walcott given so much more than he was in fight one? He'd lost. Norris was even ready to dump him and give the fight to someone else.

Then Walcott showed up in Chicago Stadium (one of Norris' buildings), fell down in the first round, missed the count, got up, went home and never fought again.

And Marciano continued on his merry way.

How is that not fishy?

Walcott's arguing with the ref that the count was fast in the ring. He tells reporters he wasn't hurt and he got up in time, and then he changes his story to I don't remember going down at all. Then it's back to "it was a quick count."

Marciano says he didn't think the punch was that hard ... then he says it was harder than the punch in fight one that knocked Walcott out.

It was all bull. They were all full of crap.

IMO, Walcott wanted $250,000 guaranteed in the bank if he was going to take a dive. (He didn't want to wait for any 'percentages' to be figured out. That was his price and "they" paid it.)

Everyone sitting in that arena thought it was a dive. Their first impressions, IMO, were accurate.

 

I think there have been a lot more dives in major fight history than we realize.

 

I imagine the rematch clause and its conditions within the contract of the first fight explaine away most of the financial irregularities and arrangements you hint at. Once the rematch was negotiated all those initial details would have stood. Those clauses were stacked to favour the original defending champion in event of a rematch.

If that was a dive then so was Patterson against Liston. Same kind of performance from both Walcott and Patterson.

The trouble with one round blow outs is you never get the chance to see how sincere the efforts of the loser might have been had he got the chance.

I just don't get how Listons reputation is made from the kind of winning performance that would be regarded as fishy from Marciano by you?

How does Patterson's effort differ to Walcotts?

 

That punch had landed 8 months earlier

 

The idea that anyone would have fixed this fight in this way is silly, in my opinion.

Walcott's purse for the first Marciano fight was mentioned, but the Ring Record Book of 1976 lists his earnings for that fight as this--

Share of gate--$138,000
Share of theatre TV--$50,000
Share of motion picture receipts--$140,000

Obviously the motion picture rights, not only in the US but around the world, was big money. It is not unlikely it could have been more important than the live gate.

They were filming in 3-D (at the time a hot Hollywood innovation) with the apparent purpose of theatre showings despite it being on TV--remember, lots of folks still didn't have TV's in 1953, and, of course, 3-D on the big screen would have been a very different way of seeing the fight from watching on a 17" screen. There was also the lucrative foreign market, 3-D or regular.

So the promoters paid Walcott $250,000 to dump the fight in the first round and badly damage the value of the film?

And what about home TV. The network must have been thrilled to have pre-empted their regular programming to have ended up with the better part of an hour of dead time to fill. And if the sponsors paid in advance, aren't they going to be happy. If they didn't, the network is really going to be thrilled.

Obviously, the way this fight went was an utter disaster for everyone involved.

No one would have paid big money for this.

And it was a disaster for Walcott. The dive theory has to assume he didn't give a rip about his reputation, but then dredged up a whole series of excuses.

It makes no sense to me. Walcott was certainly a clever boxer. He clearly could still move around quite well. Even if he was determined to dump the fight, I don't see why he wouldn't simply have boxed cautiously for a few rounds to make it look good for the TV folks and provide a decent movie.

I think it was just one of those things. Walcott hadn't really tasted leather. He ducked under a left into an inside right that he didn't see coming. He was probably dazed, and possibly watching his corner rather than the referee caused him to lose track of the count.

At least that is more convincing to me than another hare-brained conspiracy theory.

 

The mind has memory and so does the body, Walcott worked his butt and brain off in fight 1 with full confidence of victory but after 13 mauling rounds he was blasted out with one punch from the bull that he unloaded his best weaponry on. I think the Rock who always improved the 2nd time around came out fast with the knowledge of this and what was broken broke again and this time quicker

 

The first Marciano-Walcott fight wasn't televised on national television and it wasn't broadcast on the radio. It was only shown in theaters.

The $140,000 number you listed (the number I have is $125,000) was the total receipts for the theater ticket purchases. Walcott got $50,000 of it.

(You've got Walcott making $50,000 and $140,000 for the same thing. Theatre and motion picture is the same thing. His share was $50,000 of the the $140,000 total.)

His total purse was $188,000. ($138,000 from his share of the live gate and $50,000 from the theater showings.)

The rematch WAS shown on national television and WAS broadcast on the radio. The only place it was blacked out was around the Chicago/Wisconsin area - because the fight wasn't a sellout and they wanted people close enough to drive to buy tickets and attend the fight itself.

The 3D broadcast of the rematch wasn't shown live, it was shown days later. And it bombed, because the fight was so short. The film was only 17 minutes long, and most of it was training footage.)


My point remains, why did they pay Walcott so much ($250,000) for the rematch ... if he lost the first fight and the return-bout contracts were basically thrown out because it was shown on national TV.

Walcott made $70 grand more than he did for the first fight, and he made nearly a $100,000 more than Marciano for the rematch ... and Walcott was a guy on his way out of the sport. The head of the IBC was even ready to find someone else of Walcott wouldn't take the deal.

Even in the original return bout contract, Marciano and Walcott were supposed to split the purse evenly. Instead, Walcott got a lot more.

Why'd they pay him so much?

When he went down in the first and got up late, everyone at the time thought it was to take a dive.

I just think they were right.

 

No. The theatre they are talking about is closed circuit television in a limited number of movie theatres in a few big cities.

Motion picture rights was for the motion pictures which were taken of the 1952 fight and shown in motion picture theatres all over the country as an added feature with the main attraction. When I was a boy we often watched heavyweight championship fights before the main feature came on. Such a film might have been booked into 10,000 to 15,000 or more theatres alone in the USA, as well as around the world.

So there are three,

The live gate---$138,000 to Walcott

Live theatre TV--$50,000 to Walcott

Motion Pictures--$140,000 to Walcott (the motion picture money would come in over a period of months, so the newspapers wouldn't have any way of knowing how much this was in the days immediately after the fight)

With as many movie houses that there were then, it is not surprising that the motion picture take could be larger than either the live gate or the still embryonic closed circuit showings.

"The 3D broadcast of the fight wasn't shown live. It was shown days later. And it bombed because the fight was so short."

Exactly my point. You say 3D broadcast but it was a film. And why exactly would they pay a great deal of money to shoot themselves in the foot financially?

It was in their interest for Walcott to go a long ways and put up a good fight, not flop over in the first round.

As for Marciano's smaller purse, I think Weill probably gambled that the 3D films would bring in bigger money, as 3D was very hot in 1953. The short fight ruined that.

 

I have the newspaper article from the New York Times (NY TIMES Sept. 25, 1952). I downloaded a PDF of it but the copy I upload is a little small to read when I repost it.

The figures are all laid out. To me, it looks like the book you got the figures for Marciano-Walcott I took the total figure of the theater sales and mistakenly said that was "also" Walcott's share - because the newspapers "estimate" theater sales at $125,000. (They could've totaled $140,000). But Walcott's $50,000 came out of the "theater" showings.

I've found no place at all that says Walcott made upwards of $320,000 for that fight. The gate and theater combined didn't come to $500,000.

The Times article breaks down the live gate, the taxes from the live gate, the fighters shares and the "estimated theater" payouts.

Paid Attendance: 40,379
Gross Receipts: $504,645
Federal Tax: $100,929
State Tax: $40,373
City Tax: $18,167
Net Receipts: $345,177

Walcott's share (40 percent): $138,070
Marciano's share (20 percent): $69, 035

Theatre Receipts (estimated): $125,000
Walcott's Share (estimated): $50,000
Marciano's Share (estimated): $25,000

Walcott's Total Purse (estimated): $188,070
Marciano's Total Purse (estimated): $94,035

(NY TIMES Sept. 25, 1952)

I also have another NY Times article (May 16, 1953) after the Marciano-Walcott rematch.

It breaks down the totals for that fight like this:

Chicago (United Press)

Crowd: 13,266 (paid) 2,768 (passes, press, ushers, etc.) total - 16,034
Gross Gate: $331,795
Net Gate: $253,462.37
Television Revenue: $300,000
Total Net: $553,462.37

Marciano's share: $166,038.60
Walcott's share: $250,000
Balance to promoters: $137,423.40

(NY Times May 16, 1953)


I'm taking those directly out of the newspapers

 

Also, I don't know if the Ring Record books in the mid 70's were edited too tightly.

The 1976 and 1977 Ring Record Books were the ones that brought an end to the 1977 U.S. Boxing Championships, because a bunch of fighters' records in those specific record books were doctored and included matches that didn't exist.

Allowing a typo like "$140,000 to Walcott" instead of "$140,000 total" to get into print isn't out of the question (considering what else got printed in those specific books).

I don't know.

Regardless of fight one, it doesn't explain why Walcott was paid so much for the rematch.

Unlike fight one, the rematch was being shown on national television. They knew ahead of time people weren't going to run out in droves to watch it again in the theaters (which is probably why it was recorded in 3D to begin with).

Carbo liked having an Italian heavyweight champion, and Carbo was making a million dollars or so a month off his mob activities at that point. IMO, I doubt he'd give a crap if the pennies he made on 3D sales were lower as a result of paying off Walcott.

 

I posted this the other day. Walcott's original rematch clause called for (in the case Marciano win in fight one) a return bout to take place within 90 days and a 30-30 even split of the gate and the theater sales with the new champ.

But by the time the rematch happened, all that was out.

The bout didn't take place for eight months. Unlike fight one, which wasn't shown on televised or broadcast on radio, the rematch was broadcast on national television and radio. So the 30-30 split was out.

There was going to be a 3D film of the fight made and shown in theaters later, but people didn't tend to go to the movies and pay to watch something they'd already seen on television. (And, in this case, they didn't.)

Saying rematch clauses are stacked to favor the former champ doesn't work in this case, because the original rematch clause WASN'T stacked in favor of the champ. It called for an even split.

Marciano got nothing close to that.

And Patterson's effort differs from Walcott's in that he was starched twice by Liston in one round in back to back fights.

Floyd didn't floor Liston and he wasn't head on all the cards in the 13th round in their first fight when Liston landed what some thought was a "lucky punch" to score a one-punch knockout.

Patterson hadn't proved in the ring to be a threat to Liston. He couldn't win a minute of a round. Walcott had already proven he could outbox Marciano for most of the fight and drop him as well.

 

The similarity isn't that it was the same result in back to back fights. The similarity is in the effort and performance of the one rounders.

Floyd succumbed to Liston in the same way Walcott did to Marciano the SECOND time. Regardless of the first Marciano v Walcott encounter one round blow outs had been accepted in heavyweight title fights before and after.

If Liston had not repeated that performance it would still stand as a great win even though Floyd never got a chance to get going. Yet when Walcott is bombed out before he gets a chance to get going it is suspicious?

Floyd was seen as a vulnerable champion but a one round loss was about as unexpected as it was for Walcott. It is an unlikely result for any fully focused top flight fighter. That's not to say it can't happen it does. It is just rare yet acceptable. For two blow outs to occur back to back could be considered even more astonishing. The point is those Liston v Patterson results are accepted universally. The second Ali v Liston fight is not.

 

Walcott wasn't "bombed" out in his one-round loss to Rocky.

Patterson was bombed out. Everyone could see the bombs landing, and they obliterated him. Patterson even spoke freely afterward about how it felt to be knocked out.

Walcott got "dropped" by a shot most never saw. And he appeared to be coherent the whole time. In that regard, Walcott-Marciano II and Ali-Liston II are actually VERY MUCH ALIKE. That's why fans booed and yelled "fake" when both were finished.

They booed because everyone could see neither Walcott nor Liston was "bombed" out.

Regardless, none of this explains why Walcott was paid so much more than Marciano for the rematch. Why, when all Walcott wanted was an even split (in his original rematch clause), did they give him so much more than the champ?

It's not like Walcott had any leverage. Norris said if he didn't like the deal they'd pick someone else for Rocky to fight. And the NBA pressured Walcott to sign, because Rocky had to defend against someone within their time frame and if he didn't want it Rocky would fight someone else.

At that point, they really could've gouged Jersey Joe. Instead, he got paid a lot more than the champ and went down in the first.

People didn't buy the result at the time, and I think they were right.

It stinks.

That's all.

 

My stance is the second marciano v Walcott win is the same as the Liston Patterson fights. If the Walcott one rounder stinks so does both Liston v Patterson fights and all the other blow outs. Patterson was not out cold either. Down but confused.