Being reading and watching a bit of the two Marciano V Charles fights. Regarding the second fight, just how close did Rocky come to getting pulled out with the nose injury? Would another ref have perhaps stopped it, it was a bad injury after all?. Has an heavyweight fight being stopped with a cut injury and the title changed hands? And if that fight had taken place as far back as say the 70 s, would it be stopped?
Supposedly he was allowed one more round to fight. It was a bad injury. Had he not been the champ id imagine they would have stopped it before that final (seventh I think) round began. When taking it all in its a top two win for me.
From purely watching the fight and not reading anything else, I would say Marciano was quite far from losing. It was a relatively one sided fight but Charles gave an okay account of himself for around the first half. Maybe a little more. Marciano wasn't in danger of losing at any point until he came back out with that cut nose. Even then it was his fight the rest of the way and he put Charles out pretty quickly. I imagine it wasn't a punch that did it but probably a butt or something in a clinch. For the doctor to stop the fight on a cut then that cut has to be pretty deep and by extension would be bleeding pretty profusely. I didn't see Marciano drenched in his own blood and I don't think it was a punch that split his nose like that. It probably wouldn't have been stopped until Marciano started bleeding ridiculous amounts. Charles just wasn't landing anything very solid on Marciano. Today if the doctor had stopped the fight I believe it would be a technical stoppage and still a Marciano W. On a side note, I think the 15 round war with Marciano that Charles had just fought had burned him out. Charles just wasn't himself anymore in that fight. His record thereafter corroborates that.
Yeah,,I believe the rematch with Marciano was fairly quick and it affected Charles immensely more than Rocky.
I recall watching an interview with Ben Bentley, who stated that between rounds when the referee would visit the corner or be looking in Rocky's general direction, that Rocky would put his head down so the ref couldn't get a bead on how bad it was. So let's just say it was being watched.
Honestly, he was likely closer to losing the first. That one took whatever was left in Charles out of him, and the second was only really in danger due to an elbow.
The first one definitely pushed Marciano to his limits, George. Don't think anyone expected Ezzard to come out and give him that sort of a fight. It's a good job Marciano was always in good condition cos that fight would have taken it all out of some champion s. The second fight tho, from what I've picked up on, wasn't there doubts if it was a elbow or something like that that caused his nose injury? But credit to Rocky to come charging back.
I think the injury was definitely the kind of injury where the guy losing would get pulled out. But Rocky was winning this fight. Then, as now, the guy winning would always be allowed to continue. For context, Look at that cut Fury had against Otto Wallin. To date, the heavyweight title has never changed hands over a cut. when you think about it, even non title fights, a fight usually only gets stopped because the guy is cut and losing. Not many referees will pull the winning fighter out over a cut.
I think the cut was pretty severe and highly unusual and Rocky was in trouble of being stopped .. the way he rallied was dramatic and showed his greatness of pulling it out when he needed to ..
I dont know how close the referee actually was too stopping it....the Rock was putting it on Charles pretty good leading up to the stoppage. Generally if the fighter is cut like that and getti g beat up the ref might stop...but this is the 50"s a less squeamish era
