did rocky marciano retire because he feared liston?

before i get all this hate from rocky fans, this is a question, and i'm not insinuating anything. i was born in 1979 so it's way before my time, but i was talking to an older man about boxing, and this is what he told me. i found it hard to believe, so i came on here to find out if there's any truth to this.

 

No not at all. Liston was pretty much nobody when Rocky left the game.

 

And Liston went to jail for two years. I doubt if Marciano had even heard of Liston other than in the vaguest "we have a real prospect out here" sense.

 

lol

 

Sonny Liston was an unrated fighter at the time Marciano retired, a relative novice with only 15 professional fights. I doubt Marciano feared him. Perhaps wasn't even aware of him.

 

Well let's see, Marciano fought his last match against Archie Moore in September of 1955, at which point Sonny Liston was a 12-1-0-6 nobody, and a man who had recently lost to Marty Marshal..

My thinking is no.

 

I don't think Rocky feared Liston. Liston was inexperienced at this point in his career. I think Rocky would have beaten this version of Liston.

 

There are a lot of people out there who don't know what they're talking about. If you want less clouded views on boxing history, or actuality, discuss here :good

 

If anything, I think it was Patterson that led to Rocky's decision to retire.

 

To answer the thread, Marciano probably didn't even know Sonny Liston existed when he retired, and if he did know about him, he didn't care.

About your comment, dezbeast, it wasn't Patterson that made Marciano retire, it was his bad back, and his problems with Al Weil. Cus D'Amato wanted no parts of Marciano, and didn't want Floyd to fight him. Patterson wasn't even a heavyweight when Marciano retired, it was after he called it quits that Floyd moved up.

 

Agreed, the division was as good as flattened when the Rock left boxing.

 

This is a common misconception.

Actually, Marciano retired because he feared Marty Marshall. I can see why your friend became confused, though.

 

Patteron was a 20 year old fighter who nobody expected to make a move on the title for a few years when Marciano retired.

If Marciano had fought again it would have been against sombody like Willie Pastrano or Tommy Huricane Jackson.

 

Uh, you might want to read what Cus D'Amato said about Patterson fighting Marciano. The ONLY reason they were moving Patterson up to Heavyweight was because Marciano retired. Cus knew Patterson had a China Chin and knew Marciano would crush him.

 

Bill, I've watched footage of Rocky anouncing his retirement. He mentioned nothing about a bad back or his problems with Weil. He said he even had like 2 or 3 good fights left. When asked who he thought had a shot at the title when he left, he said either Archie Moore or Patterson, verifying that he knew full well that Patterson was moving to heavyweight. I'm sure lots of people here saw that footage.