Did Rocky Marciano and Willie Pep ever have any type of relationship?

I remember reading somewhere (it may have been Willie Pep's story in Peter Heller's "In This Corner") that Rocky and Willie were friends. One day in Manhattan, when Willie was champion and Rocky was just starting out, Rocky saw Willie go into a florist shop and come out with a corsage. Rocky followed him and saw him give the flowers to a lady. "Wow, what class!" Rocky thought. He especially looked up to Willie after that.

Years later, Rocky would always greet him with "Heeeeey Willie!". Willie had a sports show on TV and Rocky told him that he would be a guest anytime he wanted. He even said that he would take a dinner in lieu of being paid money for his appearance. Willie was quoted as saying he would have made out better paying him rather than feeding him, as he never saw anyone who could eat like Rocky!

 

My uncles boss’s nephew’s father in law says they used to eat blueberries together? Not sure what to make of this news to be honest.

 

I'd say the majority of those stories were true. I'm sure there were light switches in his home that didn't turn anything on, leading to hollowed out areas in the walls. With that said, OCD can be used positively by some individuals. Personally, I think everybody has at least a minor touch of that in certain areas. The Rock's was obviously major. It was all part of what made him who he was.

 

It is little known but Rocky used to work for the Chicago Chronicle when Willie moved to the metropolitan area there, and, feeling they were sort of distantly related, both being Italian-Americans, and boxers, Pep felt he could show up to Rock's doorstep, unannounced, and bring with him all of his belongings and possessions and customs and be right at home. Out of kindness, if not pure awkwardness, Rocky let Willie stay with him and got Willie a job in the mail room while he pursued his boxing career. Marciano worked on photography in a higher-up position while he pursued his own fighting legacy. This was all well before the title fighting days, of course. They actually both married girls who were best friends with each other and wound up moving from the same apartment to the same house together. It was a really close relationship, despite one being overly neurotic and greedy and the other being overly childish and naive. I believe it was on Robert Stack's Unsolved Mysteries program that they did a bit of coverage about how weird it was when all of them disappeared but then only Rocky was found? Very strange stuff.

 

Graziano who was quite abit smaller then Marciano said Rocky would come stay with him but not only wouldn't he bring a dollar he also wouldn't bring any clothes, he used Graziano's stretching everything out.

 

Disappeared? How, what were the circumstances?

 

Lol. Yeah, it wasn’t shrewdness was it, I’d say afflicted heavily with ocd

 

It was the age old story. After meeting in 49 with their white heat attraction they started off as lovers, yet yrs later ended as friends.

 

Well, it's complicated. Something like 2% of people disappear but 100% of their group disappeared until Marciano just randomly showed up on the news. Mafia? I don't know.