Apparently, Marciano and Louis used to hang out sometimes.

There was a period in 1966 when some people genuinely, sincerely believed that Marciano was on the point of launching a comeback to fight Muhammad Ali. He was supposed to have won three secret fights in the gym with "well-known heavyweights", including breaking the jaw of a "tough veteran negro" who, reading between the lines, was clearly Wayne Bethea.

https://ibb.co/brsHwnJ

 

I would imagine this is a mix up for when Mariciano trained hard to meet clay in the fake computer fight. He really did train hard for that so he would lose some weight (think he weighed 240 or 260 and dropped to like 215) he also wanted to be ready in case it turned into a real fight in the ring. I highly doubt it was a thought to really come back

 

I know that Joe Louis and Sonny Liston hung out at the second Beatles appearance on Feb 16 1964, The Ed Sullivan Show in Miami Beach, Florida, while Liston was training to fight Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali) I heard that Liston made a crack about Ringo Starr, Liston said that his Dog could play the drums better than Ringo. Both were introduced to the audience, I have all three appearances on DVD, including the then Television commercials.

 

Joe Louis kissed Marciano's coffin.

 

Mutual respect.

 

Good stuff. I am glad they maintained a relationship.

I read on esb once that a young Marciano had gotten an autograph from the then champion Louis. No idea if this is true. But it would have been cool if it was.

 

It's a bit early for that. This is 1966, the Superfight was in 69. It's possible the seed of it was a misunderstanding of Marciano's acknowledgement a few months earlier that he briefly trained for a comeback in 1959.

 

The article is three years prior to any computer fight.

 

52-0!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Floyd Mayweather eat your heart out.

 

That's funny. I thought I knew this anecdote from another book but that it was when Ingo won the title. I seem to remember Louis hung with Conn as well and was with him when Ali came into a diner and started yelling about how he'd beat Louis and Louis dropped his wake up and apologize line and Ali just laughed and said he was crazy and walked away. I've read so many of these I'm not even sure where my imagined memories begin and the real stories end, man.

 

That one you didn't imagine. I remember hearing Conn tell that story in an interview.

 

would have been 49-1 then.

 

Yeah didn’t double check that. I’d find it odd if the story were true as I’ve never read it in any biography. I only read that he had trained for Ingo when he knocked out Patterson but found he didn’t have the fire anymore. So I’d be shocked if years later he tried again and was knocking out all his sparing partners. Awesome story if true