did rocky marciano retire because he feared liston?

If Marciano's back had held up, and he hadnt tumbled to Weill's financial peculiarities, if his Wife hadnt got on his case about him living like a monk,a lot of if's .Marciano stays around kos Valdes ,and stops Patterson late,then loses a dec to a Machen or Patterson in a return.
Liston was never in the equation.

 

I think people are wrong about D'amato and Patterson not fancying a fight with Marciano.
I seem to remember something about an open letter D'amato wrote stating he would match Patterson with heavyweights, INCLUDING Marciano.

Then there's this, from TIME magazine early 1956.

In the year-end rankings of The Ring, unofficial bible of boxing, Floyd Patterson is not even a heavyweight. Last week SPORTS ILLUSTRATED set the record straight: "It is now as clear as anything can be in the future books of boxing that [the] lithe young Brooklyn Negro-who celebrated his 21st birthday last month by challenging Rocky Marciano-will be the next heavyweight champion of the world."

The full article is on this link
[url]http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,893304,00.html[/url]

 

This is the Sports Illustrated article from January 1956 that quotes Dan Florio and Cus D'amato as being confident Patterson will be ready to beat Marciano within the year.

[url]http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1131139/index.htm[/url]

 

Of course talking about it is one thing.

Signing the contract is another.

I think that Patterson did come from nowhere verry quickly and went from being an outside bet to replace Marciano to a front runner over a verry short period.

This rabbit really did come out of a hat.

 

It's true though that Patterson people asked a big deal fight once Rocky was in retirement. Same with Liston I believe. Rocky declined for both, although was making a comeback attempt for Ingo but Cus came in the way with a contract return bout that squashed that ordeal.

 

Another Sports Illustrated article, from April 16, 1956 (two weeks before Marciano announced his retirement), about Floyd Patterson being the rising heavyweight contender and D'amato's efforts to get him a big fight without selling him to the IBC.

[url]http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1130818/1/index.htm[/url]

D'amato says :

"People ask me how I can lick $200 million [a reference to the fortune Norris supposedly enjoys]. I say Floyd Patterson has to be licked in the ring and there's nobody in the world who can do that. I'll lick $200 million with Patterson. The public will demand him. If Marciano retires no one will recognize a champion unless he fights Patterson first. [Markson agrees that this is so.] As for Marciano, I knew six months ago that Patterson was ready for him, and he's better now than he was then."

 

Of course.
But Marciano was the one who retired.
I'm not saying he retired because of Patterson but it seems D'amato and Patterson were getting ready to face Marciano if need be, and sooner rather than later, and before knowing Rocky was about to retire.
Marciano retired knowing Patterson was challenging him and after Patterson had spoken about the fight in the press.
I'm not saying it proves anything about true intention but it tends to contradict the posts made earlier implying that Patterson and D'amato stayed way clear of the heavyweights or talk of facing Marciano until after Rocky retired.
Conversely, Rocky's uncle said the most serious Marciano ever came to actually comebacking was when Johansson beat Patterson. Apparently Marciano thought Johansson was amateurish and distinctly beatable.

 

To be fair though we would expect D'amatto to talk up his protige.

He is not going to say "oh dear oh dear we arn't ready for Marciano yet. My boy would get his chin knocked off".

The managers of various other contenders were probably talking up the case for a shot at Marciano, in much more immidiate language, because time was not on their side.

 

Marciano was most certainly not afraid of Liston who was spending his time in prison.

Unlike is often made out to be however, he did consider Patterson a potential opponent in the future and even admitted to going to see Patterson in order to evaluate his style.

Perhaps he simply didn't think it was an interesting enough fight for him to go back and train as hard as he did.

[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2WJEqCE1bA[/url]

 

Earlier you wrote :

But it seems the press were in fact taking D'amato and Patterson seriously and expecting that move to heavyweight as imminent. Patterson was scaling 183 when Marciano retired and was considered growing. Marciano was only 5 pounds heavier. Patterson was number 1 contender to Archie Moore at light-heavyweight, and Moore doubled as number 1 heavyweight contender. It's no surprise Patterson was being taken seriously, and rising fast.

 

Often in matters like this the truth turns out to be somewhat bizzare.

Champions like Marciano are often not good at picking winners.

The fighter who Rocky Marciano seems to have thought might be the man who finaly unseated him was a young heavyweight prospect called Charlie Powel, who in the end amounted to verry little.

[url]http://www.boxrec.com/list_bouts.php?human_id=9377&cat=boxer[/url]

 

Marciano trained for Ingo but couldnt get in the condition he would have been satisfied with, so eventually relinquished ideas of a comeback.

 

Yet in the early articles he talked about him being ready by the end of the year which would've been 1956.

Patterson said the way to fight Marciano was to back him up. Cus must've corrupted his mind with coming up with that opinion based on the Cockell fight. Patterson does this and gets murdered inside 5 rounds even against a Marciano of 1956.

 

For the record, I dont think Marciano feared any man. Certainly not Patterson.

 

I have heard that version of the story too. The Cus return bout squashed any potential of it though.