ROCKY MARCIANO

 

Rocky was a famous pugilist, whose original name was Rocco Francis Marchegiano. He is noted as being the only world heavyweight champion to retain his title throughout his career. It lasted from the twenty-third of September, 1952 until the twenty-seventh of April, 1956.

Rocky was born on the first of September, 1923, and reared in Brockton, Massachusetts. His father Pierino and his mother, Pasqualina Picciuto were immigrants from Abruzzo and Campania, respectively. Rocky had three sisters and a younger brother. Rocky was active in sports in high school, mainly baseball and later weightlifting. He was a client of the famous Italian American Charles Atlas (Angelo Siciliano). Rocky also toyed with boxing and had a makeshift punching bag that he hung from a tree in the backyard of their home. He quit school in the tenth grade and supported himself and helping the family by doing odd jobs.

 In 1943, at the age of twenty, the army drafted him and assigned him to Swansea, in Wales, England. His duties involved transporting supplies to the mainland. On his return to the U.S., while awaiting discharge, he did amateur boxing for the army and won the 1946, Amateur Armed Forces Tournament. Throughout his army stint he continued to keep an interest in baseball and boxing. He fought as an amateur boxer until 1947, when he fought Lee Epperson, as a professional. He knocked him out in three rounds.

Afterward he returned to amateur boxing in the Golden Gloves’ League. He won the bulk of his engagements, except for one which he lost to Coley Wallace. In a later knockout bout, he hurt his hand and turned his attention to baseball. He went to Fayetteville, North Carolina to try out for a farm team. He lasted three weeks before they cut him from the players. He returned to professional pugilism, and in his first bout on the twelfth of July 1948, he won over Harry Bilizarian by a knockout.  It was uphill from there. Rocky won his first sixteen bouts by knockouts, each before the fifth round and another nine before the first round finished. Some of his most notable competitors were, Marciano v. La Starza, Red Applegate, Rex Lane, Joe Louis, Ezzard Charles, and his most famous, Jersey Joe Wolcott, in September of 1952.

In this bout, Joe was the defender of the Championship Heavyweight Crown. Rocky was losing the match. The scores were all in Jersey Joe’s favor. The bout continued for thirteen rounds when in that round Rocky gave Joe his famous Susie Q, a left hook from which Jersey Joe slumped to the floor. Marciano was now the champion. This final round is available on U-tube at www.rockymarciano.net.

Rocky continued to fight, maintaining the crown and fought his last bout, on the twenty-first of September, 1955, when he fought for his third time at the Yankee Stadium against Archie Moore. He knocked him out in the ninth round. He officially retired on the twenty-seventh of April 1956.

Rocky lost his life on the thirty-first of August, 1969, in a plane crash at the age of forty-nine. In Abruzzo, Italy there is a statue of him in a boxing stance with the inscription―A ROCKY MARCIANO-CAMPIONE DEL MONDO-I CITTADINI DI RIPA TEATINA. (Rocky Marciano Champion of the World, from the citizens of Ripa Teatina)