Before the Rocky fight between 1950 and 1955, he compiled a record of 19-2 with three victories over Matthews, Lastarza, Farr, Marshall 2x, Yvel (30-1 at the time) and a few others. Now some of them were lightheavyweights, but was still quite a good run. I also saw that he went up from 174lbs to 201lbs in only four months of time. But my question is: how impressive did he look in those fights? He looks pretty awful against Marciano, but he was ranked #2 and rightfully so, based on his record. He must have done something right before.
You thought he looked awful? I thought he looked very difficult to fight...if you're very difficult to fight, you're very difficult to beat. In the early part of his career Lennox Lewis looked pretty horrible in the ring, but it didn't stop him decapitating people - similairly, Don's opponent that night, Rocky, looked similairly horrible (i'll bet all of Don's opponents did), and I know you think very highly of him...
Did he not have a illness where he put weight on?,making him have to go up to the heavys,swear i read that somewhere,think it was a marciano autobiography
I don't think Cockell looked awful versus Marciano. In fact, in the early going I thought he looked pretty good, and suprisingly quick. After a while Rocky just beat him up.
