Rocky Marciano
The movie character Rocky Balboa created and portrayed by actor Sylvester Stallone drew a great deal from Rocky Marciano. The character kept a photograph of Marciano on the wall of his apartment and later received a boxing glove necklace from his trainer which had been originally owned by Marciano. Rocky Marciano held the heavyweight title of the world from 1952 to 1956. Years after his retirement Marciano and Muhammad Ali staged a filmed fight based on a computer simulation of what would happen if the two had ever faced each other in the ring. In two versions of the film each fighter won.
Marciano’s style was one of a brawler, throwing heavy punches and missing frequently, another trait shared with the character Rocky Balboa, at least in the earlier films of the Rocky franchise. Marciano was undefeated as a professional heavyweight, winning all 49 of his fights, 43 of them by knockouts. Among his opponents were an aging Joe Louis, Jersey Joe Walcott, Ezzard Charles, and Archie Moore.
Marciano was a veteran, serving in the United States Army during the Second World War. He began his amateur boxing career in the Army, and in 1946 won the Armed Forces Amateur Boxing Tournament. After he retired from boxing he appeared on the television show Combat which depicted US troops in Europe during the war. He hosted a televised boxing program for a time and served as a referee and commentator for several boxing matches, both amateur and professional. He also sometimes worked as a wrestling referee.
In his entire professional career, Marciano was knocked down only twice, once by Jersey Joe Walcott, and the other time by Archie Moore. Both times Marciano got up and went on to win the fight. Of the six fights he won by decision only one of them was a split decision, meaning one of the judges believed his opponent had won. Despite his impressive record, few boxing experts consider him to be the greatest of all time, largely due to the paucity of great fighters during his career, with many of the then-best-known fighters near the end of their careers.
On the day before what would have been his 46th birthday, Marciano was a passenger in a small plane heading to Des Moines, Iowa. They were flying through bad weather at night and the pilot of the aircraft had little experience in the conditions. Attempting to land at Newton, Iowa the aircraft came down well short of the runway, hitting a tree. The pilot, another passenger and Marciano were killed instantly. The NTSB attributed the cause of the crash to the inexperience of the pilot.
Sources and where to learn more:
de Carlo D’Este – Patton: A Genius for War
Martin Blumenson – Patton: The Man Behind the Legend
New York Times- Adventure Marked Life of Humorist (obituary) August 17, 1935
Yumpu – Weekly Articles by Will Rogers. The Will Rogers Museum
Turner Classic Movies – William Holden on
The New York Times – July 7, 1918. (John Purroy Mitchel)
David McCullough – The Great Bridge
Shirley Jones – Shirley Jones: A Memoir