Rocky Marciano

Boxer

  • Born: September 1, 1923
  • Birthplace: Brockton, Massachusetts
  • Died: August 31, 1969
  • Place of death: Near Newton, Iowa

American boxer

Marciano retired as the only undefeated heavyweight champion in boxing history. The son of poor Italian immigrants, he dignified the legendary belt and brought great pride to the Italian American community.

Area of achievement Sports

Early Life

The first born of Pierino Marchegiano and Pasqualena Marchegiano, Rocco Francis Marchegiano, later Rocky Marciano (mahr-see-AHN-oh), survived a life-threatening bout with pneumonia in March, 1925. The experience presaged the determination that he would later show in the ring. The doctor who was attending eighteen-month-old Marciano advised his mother that if the youngster had the spirit to survive, he would be a strong boy. The crisis passed, and the doctor’s prediction came true.

First, however, Marciano h ad to overcome the temper of the times and the circumstances of his family’s poverty. When Marciano was born, the shadow of the Red Scare hung over the Italian American community. United States attorney general A. Mitchell Palmer directed raids against immigrants and deported many. Based on what many felt was circumstantial evidence, two Italian anarchists, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, were tried, convicted, and executed for allegedly murdering a payroll guard in Braintree, Massachusetts. Marciano’s father, a frail, hardworking laborer in a shoe factory, resented the anti-Italian sentiment. He had been gassed while serving in the U.S. Army on the western front during World War I and was proud of his service to his country. Marciano’s mother, a homemaker, set a good table of mostly simple fare of pasta, soup, and vegetables. She was further kept busy by the births of five more children between 1925 and 1939. With the onset of the Great Depression, factory pay remained low, and the Marchegianos, like many families, struggled to survive.

Marciano’s first love was baseball. Growing up in the shadow of James Edgar Playground, he and his buddies dreamed that they would one day make the major leagues. As a catcher for the Saint Patrick’s Church baseball team, he helped them to an archdiocese championship. At fifteen he was also the starting linebacker on the Brockton High School football team. Never a serious student, he quit school at sixteen to work while continuing to pursue his dream of playing professional baseball.

What marked Marciano from his earliest sports endeavors through the end of his fighting career was his intense dedication to training to make himself a better athlete. He was self-conscious about his small and short arms, so he began lifting homemade weights and doing development exercises. He lacked a strong throwing arm, so every evening he practiced for hours just throwing from home plate to second base. He was clumsy and slow, so every evening after throwing he ran hills and did wind sprints in the park. He developed into a powerful hitter, but his other limitations denied him a professional baseball career.

Marciano took various jobs, but the one he hated most was a stint in a shoe factory. He swore he would not do factory work for a living. Much later he commented, “I couldn’t stand the smell of wet leather it nauseated me but I had to have a job. Whenever a boxing match isn’t going my way, I can smell my sweat on my opponent’s leather gloves. . . . I then give the fight that extra effort and I win.” In March, 1943, he was drafted into the U.S. Army and sent to Wales to ferry supplies across the English Channel. After the end of World War II, he was sent back to Fort Lewis, Washington, where he found the path leading to the world’s heavyweight championship.

Life’s Work

At Fort Lewis, Marciano fought to avoid having to work undesirable details and also played on the baseball team. While home on leave in April, 1946, he impressed his uncle, Mike Piccento, with stories about his fighting prowess in the Army. Through a local booking agent, Generosa “Gene” Caggiano (who later sued Marciano for breech of a management contract), Piccento arranged Marciano’s first local bout on April 15, 1946, against a former New England Golden Gloves heavyweight champ named Henry Lester. Overweight and out of shape from rich home cooking, Marciano was through by the second round. Sensing defeat, he kneed his opponent in the groin and was disqualified. It would be the only disqualification of his career.

He returned to Fort Lewis and began serious training for the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) championships in Portland, Oregon. Needing to win three fights, he took the first two with dramatic first-round knockouts. He had, however, painfully dislocated a knuckle in the second fight. Fighting one-handed, the five-foot, ten-inch Marciano lost to six-foot, three-inch Joe De Angelis of Chelsea, Massachusetts, in the decisive bout.

Honorably discharged, Marciano returned to Brockton in the summer of 1946. He also returned to his first love, baseball. He played for a regionally famous semipro team, Taunton Lumber Company. He also took a quick fling at professional boxing. Trained and managed by his boyhood friend Allie Colombo, Marciano agreed to fight a four-rounder in Holyoke, Massachusetts, against a local favorite named Lee Epperson. To protect his amateur status, Marciano fought under the pseudonym Rocky Mack. It was March 17, 1947 (St. Patrick’s Day). He began his professional career with a third-round knockout. The purse was thirty-five dollars. Then he accepted an invitation from a baseball scout from the Chicago Cubs to a tryout in Fayetteville, North Carolina. After a three-week trial, he was rejected because of his weak throwing arm.

His throwing arm would, however, never affect his punching power. He returned home and, despite his mother’s misgivings, embarked on a training regimen to become a professional boxer. He worked the bags, sparred, and ran eight miles per day in specially weighted training boots. In January of 1948, Marciano entered the Golden Gloves tournament in Lowell, Massachusetts, and quickly recorded three straight knockouts. Hurting from a bad knuckle, he lost to Bob Girard but went on to win the New England championship before losing to Coley Wallace in the Eastern championships. It would be his last loss inside a ring. He completed his amateur career of twelve fights with a record of eight wins and four losses.

Marciano was twenty-five, engaged to be married, and smallish for a heavyweight when a New York manager named Al Weill came calling. Weill introduced him to the famous trainer Charley Goldman, and Marciano’s professional career began in earnest. On July 12, 1948, in Providence, Rhode Island, Marciano faced twenty-one-year-old Haroutune “Harry” Bilazarian of Bolyston, Massachusetts, who had been the Army light heavyweight champ in Sapporo, Japan, in 1947. Marciano knocked him out during the first round. It was Weill who turned Rocky Marchegiano to Rocky Marciano and booked the rest of his pro career.

After wading through a series of lesser opponents, Marciano’s big break came when Weill matched him against unbeaten Roland LaStarza at Madison Square Garden on March 24, 1950. The crafty LaStarza countered the powerful Marciano until, after ten rounds, it was up to the judges to award a split decision to Marciano. One year later, Marciano knocked out the legendary Joe Louis, who was attempting a comeback at age thirty-seven.

Meanwhile, Marciano had married his longtime sweetheart, Barbara Cousins, on December 31, 1950, at St. Coleman’s Church in Brockton. She was a tall, athletic, dark-haired Irish girl of twenty-two. The marriage produced a daughter, Mary Anne, born in Brockton on December 6, 1952. The couple also adopted an infant, Rocky Kevin, who was only seventeen months old when Marciano died in 1969.

Marciano’s career was now in its ascendancy. The Louis bout led to a title fight in Philadelphia on September 23, 1952, against thirty-eight-year-old champion “Jersey Joe” Walcott. Overcoming a first-round knockdown, Marciano came back to claim the title with a thirteenth-round knockout. The following May in Chicago, Marciano took Walcott out in the first-round.

Marciano would successfully defend his crown once against Roland LaStarza, twice against former champ Ezzard Charles, and once against Don Cockell. In his final fight, against light heavyweight champion Archie Moore, Marciano recovered from an early knockdown to knock down Moore three times en route to a ninth-round knockout.

As a fighter, Marciano was known for his crowding style and aggressiveness, complemented by a good left hook and a devastating overhand right. He could take a hard punch but had a penchant for bleeding. He almost lost the second Ezzard Charles fight because his corner was unable to staunch the bleeding from a split nose. Rocky had to summon his reserves to knock out Charles in the eighth round before the referee could stop the fight.

On April 28, 1956, Marciano retired from the ring with a record of forty-nine wins (forty-three of which were knockouts) and no losses. He cited the need to spend more time with his family. Other reasons may have been more compelling. He distrusted Weill, whom he thought shorted him on purses. He also had a bad back from years of almost fanatical training. He had made more than four million dollars during his professional career and had spent very little of it. After his retirement, Marciano settled in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, but never spent much time with his family. He bounced around the country making public appearances and hanging out with celebrities. He could be generous to friends (especially former pugilists) but was secretive and miserly with his money. He usually let hangers-on pick up the tabs for the parties.

In 1957, in conjunction with Charley Goldman, Marciano lent his name to a book, Rocky Marciano’s Book of Boxing and Bodybuilding. He did a couple of bit parts in motion pictures and, in the summer of 1969, agreed to a simulated match with Muhammad Ali in which they sparred over several days while a computer picked the winner. Marciano shed fifty pounds and actually got himself into some semblance of fighting shape. Marciano won the ersatz bout.

On Sunday, August 31, 1969, Marciano was a passenger with one other man on a flight in a small plane from Chicago to Des Moines. He was to attend a birthday party as a favor to a friend. Stormy weather and an inexperienced pilot contributed to the plane crashing near Newton, Iowa. The three men aboard were killed on impact. It was the day before Rocky’s forty-sixth birthday.

Significance

As a heavyweight boxer, Rocky Marciano was a transitional figure between Depression-era greats, led by Joe Louis, and the greats of the 1960’s, led by Muhammad Ali. He is the only heavyweight champion to retire undefeated, but some claim he was aided by weak competition. However, no one can doubt his punching power.

As a public figure, Marciano was idolized for his ethnic background and also as something of a “Great White Hope.” At his zenith, at the same time that the modern Civil Rights movement began to break down Jim Crow laws, he was lauded in some circles for his victories over black boxers. His fame was also abetted by being the first heavyweight champion to benefit from television exposure. His brawling, bleeding, bombastic style played well to the camera.

Bibliography

Marciano, Rocky, with Charley Goldman. Rocky Marciano’s Book of Boxing and Bodybuilding. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1957. Includes photographs of Marciano training.

Nelson, Allan. “The Scent of Failure.” American Heritage (February/March, 1997): 56. A personal anecdote about Marciano’s aversion to leather work.

Skehan, Everett. Undefeated Rocky Marciano: The Fighter Who Refused to Lose. Cambridge, Mass.: Rounder Books, 2005. Assisted by two of Marciano’s brothers and his daughter, Skehan produced a definitive account of the boxer’s life and career. Contains many photographs.

Sullivan, Russell. Rocky Marciano: The Rock of His Times. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002. Solid biography, recounting the events of Marciano’s life and career and providing detailed descriptions of his fights.

Varveris, Michael N. Rocky Marciano: The Thirteenth Candle The True Story of an American Legend. Youngstown, Ohio: Ariana, 2000. This biography of Marciano describes his life, including a contemplated comeback bout against Ingemar Johansson.

1901-1940: December 26, 1908: First Black Heavyweight Boxing Champion.

1941-1970: September 23, 1952: Marciano Wins His First Heavyweight Boxing Championship; February 25, 1964: Clay Defeats Liston to Gain World Heavyweight Boxing Title.

1971-2000: October 30, 1974: Ali and Foreman Rumble in the Jungle; November 22, 1986: Tyson Becomes Youngest World Heavyweight Boxing Champion.