Why did Rocky Marciano do so much commentating on fights that had already happened?

There’s a difference between money and income.

When you have money and you spend it, it’s gone. You keep spending it, more and more of it is gone.

When you have income and you spend it, there’s another check coming to replenish it.

Marciano wasn’t so rich that he could light cigars with $100 bills and live high on the hog forever (he had no idea, of course, that he would die so young). So the presumed answer here is, they offered him money to do it (income) and he took the gig.

I mean, why wouldn’t he? Seems like easy money for a retired boxer to get paid to watch a fight and talk while watching it. There’s nothing undignified about working.

 

He had his own TV show in retirement called The Main Event. That's where those commentaries are from.

As to why he would commentate fights that had already happened, it appears that the footage used in his show was not from live TV broadcasts, but from highlight reels that were originally intended to be shown in movie theaters. Assuming that's the case, then Marciano's commentary was basically used to repurpose the footage for TV audiences.

 

Because he was paid to do so and was very fond of money.

 

Some people in this thread seem to think Rocky was just periodically tossed some pocket change to do occasional voice-over work. In reality, he was the host of a TV show w/ celebrity guest interviews. The commentaries on YT are just excerpts from his TV show.

 

It was a TV show hosting fights from the 50's and up, Marciano would have his old foe Walcott as guest in show, Rose Lee in other, Sammy Davis Jr ete. Money of course. Now he did do the lived radio broadcast for Ali Liston 1, but never heard of the broadcast. Wonder if it's still around.

 

He was hired and paid, period.

 

Look at todays recently retired champions.

Even the ones that are not short of money, often make money as commentators.

Why wouldn't you, you are making nice money for doing something easy, while being treated like an elder statesman.

 

He was a simple man, anything good that makes you have money while keeping your hands clean..

 

I absolutely Love his commentary, analysis, and insights into the fighters and fights. I wish he had done more of them.

 

"Main Event" aired about five years after Rocky retired. It was wonderfully scripted by the little known young newspaper reporter Jimmy Breslin. Later in the 1960s and '70s Breslin would be the most famous columnist in New York. He wrote "Main Event" with Rocky speaking from a script that mimicked Marciano's actual speech and personality. Rocky did a good job of sounding like himself because Breslin did such a bang-up job of writing. In Rocky's description of the action there's more than a hint of casual cruelty as he implores the winning fighter to "get him", "finish him" and even, as I recall, "ruin him". Some of Rocky's best dialogue is in recounting the Cockell fight at Kezar Stadium in S.F. and his utter surprise that Cockell was tough.

 

He used phrases like "ruin him" or "ruin a guy" when talking about tactics like yanking on a fighter's arms or leaning on them to tire them out.

 

They used to sometimes have commentary way afterwards, I guess when they would sell the fights or whatever.

I remember watching Duran-Moore for the first time, I had bought it from an online seller. Al Bernstein was doing commentary. Despite trying to play it off as commentating in real time, Al made reference to Duran’s loss to Hearns.

Uhh Al, Duran lost to Hearns a year after the Moore fight.

 

"Push with the shoulders, Shove with the arms, do anything to ruin this guy. " It was not like Charles and Marciano were in a friendly dance.

 

Marciano would be 101 years old in 2024. Shame he died in his 40s.