On this day in 1955, Rocky Marciano had his last fight.

Yu can dissect any fighter and their career and find fault with something, but not one ever accused Marciano of taking himself out of his game and not exploiting his strengths. He did that literally every time, much to his credit. This was an example where craft and science just weren't enough to overcome sheer brute force and punch volume. Moore was just overwhelmed. Much like trying to hold the tide back with a spoon.

 

He got out the perfect time. Moore putting him down probably shocked him more ways than one, and made him realise that now was the time to go.

 

Look at those flyweights go!

 

Did he though?

He probably had a couple of good fights left, and no particularly strong challenger on the horizon.

Having said that, dominant champions have a way of losing very abruptly.

 

Always best to leave 'em wanting more.

RIP Rocco.

 

For once an athlete displayed good sense and went to the house before he was sent to the house. Enormous respect for Rocky for doing that.

 

Marciano retired at the right time. He still most likely had enough left to dominate the division for another 2-3 years, but a combination of his family wanting more of his time and Marciano wanting more freedom from his team definitely played a large part in him retiring when he did.

Here is a piece with Marciano a few days after retiring talking about the toughest part of his career. As nicely as possible Marciano emphasizes how tired he grew of having to always follow instructions from others, but mostly Weill, Goldman, and Columbo.

Asked what was the toughest for him nine years of campaigning, winning, and defending the heavyweight championship. Rocky Marciano gave an unusual answer:

"Listening to people." replied The Rock, without batting a big brown eye, "always being told what to do."

"Training is drudgery to most fighters, but I enjoyed it, honestly I did. And no one ever liked to fight more than I did, but advice from morning until night got on my nerves sometimes, and I'm a good listener."

"Al Weill is a fine manager. I'd sign with him if I had to do it all over again, but he was domineering. When I did something he considered wrong, he'd jump all over me. 'Ain't you ever goin' to learn he'd shout.'

"I started listening to people when I woke up in the morning. "Get out of bed, Rocky." Charley (Trainer Goldman would say.)

"'Better put on a jacket, it's chilly out.' Allie Columbo life long friend and piece-holder would say."

"Road work finished and out of the shower, I'd get more words of wisdom from Columbo while he was giving me a light rub. Columbo had some good theories, but the constant earful grew tiresome."

When the workout started in the afternoon, he really was given the business, Marciano recalled - from Weill, Goldman, Columbo and Jack Moore, one of the last of the old-time boxing instructors. Even $20 sparring partners got in the act.

"Bend over!" Columbo would shout.

"Get up a little when you punch." roared Weill.

"Move to the left." instructed Goldman.

"I'm reaching you with left hands. Better watch it," cautioned a sparring mate.

In the little cottage on the hill at Grossinger's in the Catskills, the jeweler from Dayton, O.. and the tomato king took over.

"You look much better when you straighten out that left." whispered the jeweler. "I know you wrecked all them guys with left hooks, but if you shoot it straight you'll keep the other guys off balance and cut him up and it is prettier to watch. I know, I told Dempsey that, I've been around with all the champs."

Marciano's voluntary steering committee would resume in the evening. A sports writer would start interviewing the Block Buster, then detach himself and go off on his own: "Rocky I got a word of advice for you. You have to make yourself better known to the public."

Marciano quite naturally credits Goldman with teaching him the most.

"What perhaps helped more than anything else was that Charley was patient with me at the start, while I was coming along." he explained.

"I may have lacked finesse, but I was a puncher who walked in, and I slipped more punches than they thought. When I was hit, I hit back - with two or three punches. That, more than anything else, ruined the guys I fought."

"But I never dreamed that there were so many guys who know how to fight."

"The only trouble was that they weren't in the ring when the bell rang."

"If he ever comes back, I'll hit him on the head with a baseball bat." cut in Morris Gold, bottle gas and sprinkler magnate of Sullivan County, N.Y.

"You see," said Rocky Marciano. "I'm still listening to guys.

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Nothing to do with it. He hated Al Weil, who was stealing from him. He had a very bad back, the surgically rebuilt nose, a recurring cut from the Shkor fight, and bad tennis-elbow. He had promised his mom that he would quit when he started getting hurt, and, after the Charles fight, he realized just how much it was hurting his dad, as well, when his dad got in a fight with a reporter. He was talking about quitting well before the Moore fight.

 

It is a myth that Marciano was brute force, and we have posted the quotes here a dozen times where guys talked about how hard he was to hit. being 5'10" and and having the shortest reach or any heavyweight champ, he was never going to be a classic out-boxer, so he developed an alternative style of building stamina, coming in low to make his height an advantage, and landing two-fisted bombs in big bunches on the inside.

It worked.

 

I have never suggested Marciano wasn't deceptively hard to hit, if the suggestion was that I was cutting him short or dismissive of his abilities. Being an example of brute force (which he absolutely was, I stand by that) and being harder to hit than many think are not mutually exclusive terms.

 

We will leave it at that, as I am also a Sanchez fan!

 

Shouldn't have been his last fight.

If Weil hadn't overplayed his hand, Rocky would've stuck around for one more match, to finish at exactly 50 wins, after which there would've been absolutely no more possible reason to continue on.

He wouldn't have suddenly been a loser. He'd have put everything into preparation for what everybody knew would be one final match. He was being interviewed about that magic 50th win in the ring following his defeat of Moore, and seemed very receptive to it. But Al Weil was an idiot, and with Rocky's compromised back and monastic life in training, Weil very stupidly underestimated Marciano's willingness to put up with any more.

Rocky was already the very first with an unblemished record to ever challenge for a world championship. He made history merely for answering the bell for JJW I. Everything after that was new history.

Marciano was defending two times a year. He was aiming for 50-0 all along. He wasn't going to try for another two or three years, and he considered Patterson's gazelle punch to be amateurish (and said so on camera). Floyd wasn't someone he was concerned about.

One final defense in early 1956 (probably around February), then he'd have nothing left to gain by going any further. He admitted being rusty for Charles I and looked rusty again for Cockell, so a February-March 1956 time frame seems about right, factoring in the rigors of his training regimen in balance with his frequency of competition for optimal performance. Where, at that time of year? The Orange Bowl could've served as a large outdoor venue, MSG was the Mecca of Boxing, but Boston Garden had hosted world championship boxing before, and Marciano considered himself as a champion for all New England. (So did MMH.)

 

Wonder what would happen if he fought Patterson or Valdes in 1955/1956?
If Patterson fought Marciano instead Archie wonder what would happen?

I think Marciano would knocked him cold.

 

He retired at the right time, why go on and risk your legacy when there’s nothing more to prove? +he got out without taking too much punishment.