What's your take on Marciano KO1 Walcott?

This was a precursor of Chuvalo-Quarry. Rocky decked Joe, who lost the count, simple as that. (Standing eight counts were not the rule then.)

It's too bad the rematch had to end like that, as it might have been another classic confrontation. Marciano does deserve credit for getting off to a fast start though.

 

Either that or Joe just thought 'F*ck it'

 

Walcott grew old in a single round.
The way I see it, he was probably feeling full of pep and enthusiasm going in, but when he was dropped by that right, all those memories of the first fight came flooding back and he decided to sit it out.

I suppose one could equate that to an old guy who used to jog, then one day decides to run around the local park. He limbers up and starts off, but after a few minutes he gets a stitch and remembers his age...and limps off home, deflated.

I'm not calling Jersey Joe a coward. He had paid his dues as a fighter and had surrendered the title after a very hard fight.
Maybe as he was taking the count, he thought to himself: "Is this really worth it anymore?"
Maybe it wasn't really even a concious thought.

But the position in which he took the count (on his bum) and the way he suddenly jumped up right after the ten count suggests he had no interest in rising when he should have.

It was a decent win for Rocky, but I've always felt Walcott could have gotten up.

 

That's an interesting point, and I've always felt Marciano deserved more credit than he gets for this performance.

He started off fast (in contrast to the first fight, or most of his fights in general), kept Walcott off balance, and then took him out with a sneak right that Walcott never saw coming. Of course Walcott was "old" then - but when wasn't he old? He was still good enough to have been the legitimate undisputed HW champ only the year before, and had twice beaten a HOF champ in Ezzard (once by shocking KO). No one else had ever taken out Walcott like that before, and no really one expected Rocky to - and that alone means Rocky deserves some degree of credit IMO.

This is a fight that should probably be considered Rocky's defining moment (like his own Tyson-Spinks fight) yet it's a case of a fight being totally dismissed because of a presumed excuse. I do agree Walcott may possibly have said "No mas" after he was dropped, but I don't agree with the notion that he outright "took a dive" the way Liston did in the Ali rematch. I would say the outcome is more comparable to Tyson-Spinks, in which Walcott/Spinks actually did show up to fight, but possibly became discouraged after feeling his opponent's power and then perhaps "quit" after he was dropped. The punch that floored Walcott was a legitimate great punch and Walcott never saw it coming. I think if you make a guy quit with the force of your fists (which is assuming Walcott actually did "quit" - only he could ever really know that) then you deserve as much credit as if you knocked him unconscious.

 

Sure. That's part of what I was saying...after he felt that power again, the memories came flooding back. Of course, nobody know for sure. It was a decent shot, no doubt. I just feel Walcott could have gotten up.

It's interesting that Rocky started more quickly though, don't you think? Either he didn't want to fall behind early again, or Goldman, being the crafty old fox he was, thought that Walcott was there to be gotten rid of quickly.

I'm not sure how much of a comparison one can draw to Tyson v Spinks and this fight.
The circumstances were entirely different.
Tyson v Spinks was a battle between two undefeated fighters, one being the lineal champ and the other holding all the belts.
Spinks was finished from that Tyson right and could not have gotten up if the count reached 50.

What's your take on the 2nd Walcott fight?

 

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Lets be honest here, Walcott was nearly 40 years of age and had been violently knocked out in the fight before it. Not just knocked out, but knocked out cold. There's no way he was the same man that fought Rocky 9 months earlier.

 

He was 34 years old then though and didn't have all those fights against Charles, Johnson, Hoff, Layne, Marciano then, many of them tough fights. He also didn't go onto beat anybody after the first round KO loss to Marciano but instead retired for good.

The fact that the fight only lasted 3 minutes, with Walcott putting up little resistance, and being blown away in one round pretty much shows, in my opinion, that he was badly faded since the first fight.

This was the man who nearly blew Marciano himself away in the very first round.