Ali vs Marciano: 1950's style

It was largely spin. As Ali later admitted in his autobiography, "there was no computer telling us what to do".

Instead they laboured around the ring, avoiding head punches and mostly tapping at each other's stomachs. A duvet of flab embraced Ali's mid-section, and his jabs contained the spite of a well-fed labrador. Marciano, who had lost 45lbs in case his opponent took liberties, was more serious. But a new toupee, which he believed made him look well-groomed and youthful, further turned this curiosity towards cartoon: he looks like an undersized hoodlum from **** Tracy.

At one point the pair were exchanging blows when Ali's jab flicked the back of Marciano's head and scooped up his toupee.

"Cut! Cut! Cut the camera," shouted Marciano, "Watch the piece!"

Later he asked his friends: "You don't think he's doing it on purpose?"

"No Rock," his friends assured him. "It's just an accident."

"Well, he'd better start aiming those punches better," Rocky said.

"Rock was really upright about the toupee," Ali's trainer, Angelo Dundee, said. "He had this guy in New York that made his toupees. I remember when he got the first one. Mingia! It was terrible. It looked like a dead cat. I said, 'Rocky, watch out. The thing might get up and run away."

Sadly the scene didn't make the final edit.

The theatre is further enhanced by knowing that the 'blood' from Marciano's cuts to his nose and forehead, which he develops in the fight, is ketchup. Wrote Ali: "My glove never hit his face, his glove never hit mine … the promoter asks me if I can think of some ending, and I plan the one that is actually used: I show Rocky how to hit me and I fall as though it's real. We have seven different endings – some with me winning, some with Rocky winning. Some segments we fake so good they are left untouched by the editors."

Ali has a point with the knockout sequences, which are realistic enough. And there are moments where a fight hints at breaking out, especially in the 12th where Ali connects with a series of playful flicks that get a snorting Marciano swinging widely. Mostly, though, the action was sloppy and forgettable.

"I think it was Marciano who threw the first real punch," Woroner said later. "They had been fooling around when Marciano suddenly let one go to the midsection. Ali followed with a shot to the head. But the fighters respected each other and apologized for these slips. And afterwards, Ali commented that Marciano had surprised him."

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A friendship was forged outside the ring. Marciano, the bashful white man who served his country in the second world war, and Ali, the brash Afro-American draft dodger, found themselves getting on famously.

"Through all the fakery, something is happening between us," Ali wrote in his autobiography. "I feel closer to him than any white fighter in the trade. We talk fighter's talk in the way only friends can, blood talk, nitty-gritty talk. Our work is phoney but out friendship has become real."

Throughout filming Ali referred to Marciano as 'champ'. And in his autobiography he wrote: "Rocky was quiet, peaceful, humble, not ****y or boastful" adding that he "deserves his place as one of the greatest of the great heavyweights. Marciano, meanwhile, called Ali "the fastest man on wheels".

"But as the fraud came near an end, it was plain that neither of us, both heavyweight champions, liked the idea of being dramatized as defeated by the other – especially in a fake fight – and we were both on edge," admitted Ali. "One afternoon I unleashed a string of lightning-fast jabs that kept coming almost the entire round. Rocky was amazed and said: "I never seen a fighter with hands that fast."

The pair separated on good terms. A month later Marciano was dead when the three-seater plane he was travelling in from Chicago to Des Moines crashed into an oak tree in the middle of a cornfield. It was the evening before his 46th birthday.

Then.

THE AFTERMATH

On 20 January 1970, the Super Fight was shown as a one-time-only offering in 1,000 cinemas across the United States and a further 500 in Canada, Mexico and Europe. The result was "more closely guarded than the gold in Fort Knox," according to Time magazine. But some sniffed the future in the prevailing wind.

As Arnold Davis, the Philadelphia Inquirer reporter, told Ali: "That computer is no fool. You won't submit to White America's old image of black fighters, you won't even submit to White America's army. You're barred from the ring, stripped of the title, and on the other hand here is the real White Hope, the undefeated world heavyweight hero of the post-Joe Louis days … every self-respecting made-in-America computer knows how to add that up.

"You know what they want?" he added. "They want your ass whipped in public, knocked down, ripped, stomped, clubbed, pulverised, and not just by anybody, but by a real Great White Hope. We need Marciano to be able to club you into submission. They'll dig up the old heroes to say we had real red-blooded white men in those days that could handle ******s like this. A white ghost against a black ghost … Fantasy – but a lot of people live on fantasy. The end is supposed to be a mystery? To whom? Marciano will beat you bloody. And it will sell like hell in South Africa, to say nothing of Indiana and Alabama."

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Others did more than smell the result in advance; they knew it. As Skehan put it: "One thing is certain: Rocky never thought he would lose. He had refused millions to make a comeback in the ring. There was no way he would risk losing a fight to a computer for a few thousand dollars." Just before Marciano died, just three weeks after filming, his brother Peter asked him: "How do you think you'll do in that fight?" "I'm a winner in 13," said Marciano, grinning.

After the plane crash, Peter phoned Woroner, concerned that the end would be changed. He needn't have worried: the result was exactly as his brother had forecast. During the 'fight' Marciano was bloodied, put down, and behind on points before coming back to win by knockout in the 13th round – an unimaginative regurgitation of his first championship bout with Jersey Joe Walcott.

Ali watched the fight in a crowded Philadelphia picture house; saw his left arm sagging on the middle rope as Marciano lifted his hands in celebration as the computer delivered its verdict: "Rocky Marciano wins by KO in 57 seconds. Knockout came on a combination of two rights and a left hook. Muhammad Ali though game could not withstand Marciano's final attack. Ali did not land a single effective punch this round." And he felt shame.

"I saw myself on the ropes being destroyed by Marciano, in one of the 'artistic' endings few actors could equal," he wrote. "But some people thought it was real. Some sat stone-still, some booed and yelled, some cried … I felt like I had disappointed millions all over the world. It left me ashamed of what I had been doing. I had gone over the country promoting the series as fair and accurate, especially the Marciano v Ali show."

His trainer Angelo Dundee was more sanguine. "To err is a machine," he joked.

Why did people believe the whole grand sham? Partly because they wanted to, of course. But this was also the era when man shot for the stars, and moonwalking was a reality not a dance. Technology was taking on all-comers and winning. Its dimensions were uncertain, its boundaries unclear – perhaps using it to 'solve' sporting hypotheticals wasn't so far-fetched.

Of course the Super Fight didn't settle the debate. It merely reset it. It matters little, but in a hypothetical Ali v Marciano encounter, most would make a prime Ali – the Ali that dismantled Cleveland Williams, before inactivity snatched much of the skip and slip from his legs – a strong favourite. But Marciano would have had a puncher's chance. And he certainly was a puncher.

Speaking to Howard Cossell on the Wild World of Sports in 1976, Ali paid his friend and acting partner a generous tribute, saying: "Ooh he hit hard … But I truly think on my best day and his best day I would have beaten him, probably not knocked him out. I think he was better than Joe Frazier, put it that way. And you know what Joe Frazier did to me.

"He wasn't as great as me, he wasn't as beautiful as me – everybody know that," he added. "But I don't know whether I could have beaten him with his style of boxing. He could have outpointed me, he could have knocked me down. I did a computer fight with him when he was an old man and just pretending and my arms were sore just from joking with him."

After the film was shown, Ali called the Super Fight "a sham" and "a Hollywood fake" on the **** Cavett show. He was right. Even so, Woroner responded with a $2m lawsuit, claiming that another computer fight – this time involving Sugar Ray Robinson and the Frenchman Marcel Cerdan – had fallen through because Sugar Ray had lost faith in the computer.

Soon everyone else had too. In September 1970, the NCR 315 predicted that Joe Frazier would suffer a six-round defeat to Bob Foster in their forthcoming heavyweight title fight. No one else did, for Frazier was 21lbs heavier and swarming towards his prime. The fight was a mismatch: Frazier stalked his prey, before connecting with a left hook of such velocity that it twisted Foster's body like a spinning top and injured his ankle, before knocking him out 49 seconds into the second round.





The above might be of some assistance to you.

 

The quote comes from Yank Durham. It is repeated in the commentary to the Mathis fight.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FE10Ps-n74A.

If you have eyes, watch the last round of the Mathis fight and see the three devastating rights he lays on Mathis to lead to the end. If you don't understand the sport, that is fine. I can give you some good references to begin your education.

Frazier had a very good right uppercut, right hook to the body. He usually finished with his money punch, a left hook to the head. If you can't see the two-handedness of this, well... there is always tennis.

 

Meaningless. Tell everyone the fighters he knocked down or out with his right hand. Do some research and understand what "not having a right hand" means when people who know the sport discuss such things. Widely understood by the experts (including Clancy and Angelo) of the time Joe "had no right hand". Any other thought is pure revisionism. Period.

 

Haven't you ever heard the old saying " You can't educate pork"?

Only idiots would claim Joe Frazier couldn't hit hard with both hands. The fact that his left hand was far more powerful is completely irrelevant.

You are totally wasting your time with someone like Perry who thinks his opinions are far more valid than any visual evidence to the contrary. Just like those religious scum who tell you there is a super galactic sky daddy that they nor anyone else has ever seen.

 

You show your ignorance of the subject matter. No one is saying he could not use his right hand or even hit well with his right hand. Either of you not understanding the phrase "not having a right hand" shows you lack some basic understanding of the sport. Look back on this thread and educate yourself. Revisionism is generally a very bad practice and typically on the wrong side of the facts.

 

:rofl:rofl

I love it when someone argues with himself. If we are running a book, I'll back your alter ego to get the better of the actual you.

A good place for you to start educating yourself might be to learn to tell the difference between a legitimate phrase and a cliche.

 

Bottom line obviously you don't know what the phrase means. Typical boxing terminology and you are hopelessly lost. Figures. Study up and maybe in a few years you can compete with the big boys. Right now you are in the kindergarten stage. Good luck!

 

As it has been explained to you there is a huge difference between a legitimate phrase and a cliche. There is no such thing as boxing terminology. There are merely thousands of cliches. I think if you try exceptionally hard a kindergarten might just accept you, though it is highly doubtful. However with the level of idiocy in America there is always hope.

 

As it's been explained to YOU. It is common knowledge if you lived through the 60s and 70s that Frazier was very limited on his right side (aka.... No right hand). Everyone who is anyone was aware of this. You were not aware thus exposing another of your many limitations.

 

"Oh say can you see".:yep

Lighten up Foxy ,or you'll be following me to the sin bin.:ban

 

gee I hope you are not referring to the right hands that Frazier club/hooked with, it was all the left against Mathis, yes Frazier hand 2 hands unlike his one-armed Dad but after watching this fight again I have to say it was only good enough to set up the left, in fact I could see a difference in the size of Frazier's left arm to his right, like Gerry Kooney and Bummy Davis it is what we old timers refer to as a one-handed fighter.....and I dont remember any KO's scored by Frazier or Kooney with the right hand....

Its funny Bummy Davis KO'd a fighter by the name of School Boy Bernie Friedkin and Bummy's people went around saying that it was a right hand that did it but Bernie told me it was the same left hook that took Bob Montgomery out in 1 rd, no right hand at all and I am afraid Seamus you will find the same thing with Frazier under closer inspection

Now Marciano for the left see Mathews and Moore and for the right see Walcott and Layne and you will see both hands vs Charles and Vingo for starters

 

Frazier was a converted Southpaw and like many converted southpaws his left was magnificent but the right a weapon no one worried about.

 

Hehehe. I already have, and I couldn't care less. It seems to me if you don't use either the F or C words, and don't direct insults at a poster on a personal level the mods seem happy enough. In any event that is for them to worry about, not me.

It is no secret that I have contempt for Murican's in general, and some in particular, so if it leads to me being banned so be it. I just find them to be over confident and under trained in too many subjects they offer their half baked opinions in, and Perry is a prime example of this.

 

Here is the reason why Joe's left hook is famed, but it is moronic to claim he had no right hand. Trust me NO ONE on this forum would have liked to get hit with it.


Not long after Frazier started working, his left arm was seriously injured running the family's 300 pound hog. One day Frazier poked the hog with a stick and ran away. However, the gate to the pigpen was open and the hog chased him. Frazier fell and hit his left arm on a brick. His arm was torn badly, but as the family could not afford a doctor, the arm had to heal on its own. Joe was never able to keep it fully straight again.

Now it is a simple choice, which funnily enough most attendees of those kindergarten's you harp on about could answer, so take your time.

You wrote.

" Frazier had no right hand "


You also wrote.

" No one is claiming Frazier couldn't punch with his right hand. "

So which is it? You only need to pick one out of the two. It shouldn't be that difficult.