What is your opinion of the Cockell-Marciano fight?

Routine win for Marciano, Cockell had heart, but nothing to have success against Marciano in terms of ability.

 

Mismatch,a gimmeee.
An obese light heavy who had scraped by an on the decline Lastarza who had been ruined by Marciano got Cockell a ranking,this and wins over false alarm Mathews . Cokell was a light heavy who had been stopped by middleweight and a lhvy.

 

Not a great look for the Rock, he threw the kitchen sink at Cockell who's been chinned by far lesser punchers in less time.

 

With every conceivable thing in his favour, Marciano unnecessarily fought his dirtiest fight.
Despite hitting him, standing or kneeling! with “everything,” the vaunted puncher took 9 inglorious rounds, to stop the brave Cockell.

 

Cockell was just slippery enough to make the Rock look worse than he was

 

A test for Rock's surgically repaired nose.

Cockell was #2 contender so it was in no way a gimme or anything like people say, though.

 

Don was feeling Rock's punches in his sleep for years!

 

First time I’ve ever heard of Don being described as “slippery!”

 

Just goes to show what some extra mass and determination can do for one's durability. It also lays out a case for precision punching over just hitting a guy wherever.

 

He was blubbery but Marciano just could not walk him into a punch if you watch he always moved just enough to take power off, yeah he had been KO'd in the past but by much quicker fighters

 

Like many fights of the past, it starts to make more sense, once you look at the events on the ground.

As others have pointed out, Marciano had recently had his nose rearranged, so his backers were looking for a credible challenger, who was not a puncher.

So they looked at what was around at the time, and they saw that the Ring #2 contender was a light punching British fighter, who was on a bit of a roll at the time.

The fact that he is British gives them another angle to sell the fight.

In my opinion it was intended as a soft defense, but one that was very carefully planned to stack up on paper.

This was literally Marciano's only title fight, where he was not fighting the current Ring Magazine #1, so we can't bee too hard on him here.

If a champions handlers are looking for a soft touch today, they don't look for a top 5 ring contender, who might be a good stylistic match, or might be overvalued.

 

"Why am I fighting this guy?"Marciano

 

Ranked #2...the NBA

 

I don't have a problem with Marciano taking a gimmeee defence,I have a problem with posters saying it was anything more than that,it wasn't expected to be competitive and it wasn't.