Forty-three of his 49 wins were knockouts. Though Rocky was always an underdog, he was the only heavyweight champion to finish his career with no defeats. Unidentified man, Marciano, Boston Mayor John Collins, singer Jimmy Durante. He reigned as champion from that day in 1952 to April 27, 1956. After the old fighter retired, Rocky Marciano helped him out financially. He idolized Joe Louis, who he knocked out on Oct. Some say Rocky Marciano was popular simply because he was white. He beat Jersey Joe Walcott for the heavyweight title on Septemin Philadelphia, becoming the Great White Hope in an age when African-Americans won nearly all the championships. When a ring announcer in Providence, R.I., couldn’t pronounce ‘Marchegiano,’ he changed it to Marciano. The team cut him after three weeks, and he devoted the rest of his athletic career to professional boxing. In 1947, he and a group of friends went to Fayetteville, N.C., to try out for a Chicago Cubs farm team. (To see a highlights video of Marciano’s career, click here.) He took punch after punch while waiting for a chance to deliver a punishing blow. While finishing out his service in Fort Lewis, Wash., he won the 1946 amateur armed forces boxing tournament.Īfter his discharge he fought on the amateur circuit. He realized his potential as a boxer after he decked an Australian during a brawl in a Welsh pub. Army drafted him in 1943 during World War II and sent him overseas. He went to work with his father in a Brockton shoe factory. He played baseball and football in high school, but dropped out before graduation. 1, 1923, the oldest son of six children of Italian immigrants. He was born Rocco Francis Marchegiano on Sept. Unlike Rocky Balboa, Rocky Marciano came from Brockton, Mass. “always win: with a broken nose, with closed eye, a blood-red mouth. “There are some who never give up,” he wrote.
Rocky Marciano refused to believe he couldn’t win all the time, according to his biographer Emanuela Audisio. Every day, including Christmas, he jogged six to seven miles. He went shoulder deep in a swimming pool and threw punches for 45 minutes. He ran uphill at full speed, then back down backward. Like Rocky Balboa, Rocky Marciano adopted an unusual training regimen that gave him more stamina than anyone in boxing.
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