How popular was Rocky Marciano in his day?

Marciano was personally popular, he was a nice unassuming guy , never shot his mouth off,or bragged about what he would do to opponents.

He was seen as a lesser champion to Dempsey to whom he has often been compared.

As Dempsey's fans have died ,Marciano's stock has risen.
He was fortunate that TV was becoming big and this helped put him out there.

His action filled come forward style and, it must be said his colour undoubtedly contributed hugely to his popularity.
His immediate predecessors, Walcott and Charles were seen as boring workmanlike champions,poor substitutes for the Brown Bomber.
Marciano restored some of the buzz to the division with his aggressive, punching style ,and being white ,he rejuvenated interest in the casual fan
I'd guess he is as popular with hard core fans today as he has ever been,and his standing is higher than it was during and immediately after he was active.

 

Wilson never saw Dempsey,Tunney,or Sharkey,he died in 1981 so his list is necessarily limited.

Wilson also said Marciano would have been dsq'd had he fought ****ell in the UK. Marciano didn't achieve" great" status until into the 60's.

 

A really interesting thread...
Its interesting to compare how fighters were viewed at the time they were fighting and then again,years later.
I remember in my youth in the seventies and eighties a world heavyweight fight was an event that everything stopped for.

 

He saw everyone from Schmeling to Foreman ringside. That was quite a cross section. In his view Marciano was the second best from those that he saw live.

Firstly Peter said the fight went "exactly the way anyone who had seen both box expected it to".

In his Autobiography Wilson said he warned Don to break every rule in the book against Marciano because the "no foul" rule was in place.

"I fear the Marquess of Queensberry would not have approved of what I told him"

"I told Kockell that anything would go under American rules and at the first sign of anything illegal by Marciano he must reply with a harder head, a lower punch or a total disregard of the bell ending a round. I assured him that under the American "no foul" rules he would not be disqualified but I warned him not to wait until he was half crippled before he tried to retaliate"

Without fighters being warned we are left to decide if Marciano fouled to a Disquafiable level on any particular instance. He was rough and clumsy but do you think any particular infringement was worthy of anything other than a warning? The accumulation of offences can only be factored in had warnings been in place. How are we to know Rocky would have continued against warnings in England?

Without incapacitating ****ell with a foul I think saying Rocky would get disqualified in England is just something the British press claimed in order to grasp some kind of moral satisfaction from Marcianos dominance over Don. It was more a reaction to the differences in the rules than any kind of scandal. Certainly it was not like Ken Buchanan against Duran or Schmeling against Sharkey.

Marciano was very popular as champion and in demand as an ex champion. Dempsey was hugely popular as an ex champion but despite the million dollar gates somewhat hated until losing to Tunney. As an ex champion Dempsey eclipsed all active champions (Louis and Marciano included) for popularity probably until the second coming of Muhammad Ali.

 

I have both Ringside Seats by Wilson.
Wilson no longer wrote for the Mirror when Foreman was champ he had retired.Frank McGhee took his place.
Wilson was no lover of Ali and as -late as FOTC he was referring to him as "Clay",so don't look for an unbiased opinion from him.

Can you show the quote where he rates Marciano no 2 behind Louis?

You quote Wilson ? Well he unequivocally stated that Marciano would have been dsq'd in the UK, it's in the second volume.

He also stated that Marciano was badly hurt against Moore in the second round.
N.B. Now that you're posting again do you want to address my rebuttal to your statement that Johnson fought a lot of smaller men?

If you go to the Johnson v Marciano thread you will see I proved that Johnson's challengers were bigger, heavier, and younger than Marciano's.

I'm a bit puzzled why you haven't commented on it?:huh

 

Yes, I think you were right about Johnson's challengers being a little bit bigger but they were far less qualified to challenge for the title so I wasn't going to bring it up within the argument you were having with other posters. I didn't want to appear to be ganging up on you. It's not my style. Johnson was a great fighter but without serious adjustments would have been regularly disqualified and stripped of his crown in almost any other era.

I've got all three Wilson books. They are excelent. I'm certain any reference too Rocky being disqualified had more to do with the differences in the rules between America and the UK rather than Kockell being awarded a win.

Regarding this thread I am going to look for a magazine I have from the late 1950s that showed a graph of how highly regarded the heavyweight championship and its champions were. If I remember rightly it had Dempsey and Johnson rated as the peaks and Louis and Marciano almost as high with everything else representing a much lower dip.

 

No worries:good

 

Yes Wilson had left the Mirror by the time Foreman fought Frazier but he watched Foreman at the Olmpics and against Peralta and others on the under card of New York fights he covered.

Of Foreman he wrote "I really thought he was better than Frazier at the same stage of development, but I shall always feel that he did not find that really good tutor, or at least, not in time, or he would never have fought that asinine battle he waged against Clay in Zaire six years later. Previously his power of punch had been enough to win 37 of 40 professional fights he had inside the distance - but a bludgeon alone is not enough for clay" and later "it seemed almost unbelievable that a world heavyweight champion could fight as brainlessly as Foreman did"

 

Foreman would have been much better served had Archie Moore been the number one man in his corner instead of incompetent Dick Sadler.
I watched the fight on closed circuit at Leics Sq,even half pissed, I could see Ali was letting him shoot his bolt. I won a few quid that night.:good

 

Wow, that was a good call.:good.

It took Foreman many years to fulfil his destiny. With a wider range of decent opponents before coming to the title would have been better for him too.

 

Yes, a couple more Peralta calibre opponents would have forced him to learn to pace himself and learn to take his foot off the gas until the right moment to floor it.

 

Some good calls above on Foreman...ive always thought of him as 'unfulfilled potential' in the seventies due to poor tactics v Ali and Young.

 

In 1961 boxing illustrated rated all the heavyweight champions until then and they rated Marciano equal to Joe Louis. In those days champions like Johnson, Corbett, Jeffires, Fitzsimmons and Dempsey were still rated above both Rocky and Joe by the men who were eye witnesses of all the champions until that point. Both Louis and Marciano came ahead of everyone else. Being an exciting dominant champion seemed to be the most important thing and being "like Jeffries but smaller" seemed to go a long way.

Here is a direct quote from the article assessing Marciano among the champions:


"His knowledge of boxing was disgraceful. Some experts say he was the greatest of all time. whilst others insist he was just a strong kid who came along at the right time - when there was no opposition around. We say he was a great brawler who would have given any of the champions more than a run for their money. We confidently give Marciano an 80 rating"