Rocky Marciano early years

[funso banjo baby]

whats the deal with the supposed dodgyness of Rockys early record...fighting his brother etc

and who was tiger ted lowry..i think he went the distance twice and was good


i love the rock.. still all time top 10 no worries

[Marciano Frazier]

Marciano did box with his younger brother, Sonny, but only in exhibitions, in which Sonny generally went by the alias of "Pete Fuller," because Peter Fuller, a promising amateur fighter, had pulled out of a previously agreed-to exhibition tour with Rocky, and Sonny more or less acted as a stand-in (though reportedly the audiences would pretty readily recognize that they were brothers and the whole thing was a bit of an embarrassment to Rocky). However, all of these encounters were, as I say, exhibitions and do not appear on Marciano's record. If you doubt me, here, it is readily verifiable that Marciano's early opponents were actual people, most of whom were reasonably well-known local fighters. Moreover, nearly all of Marciano's early fights were in Providence, RI or the surrounding area, where many people who knew Rocky and his family personally were in attendance and many of the same people came to nearly all of his fights; a scheme where he kept fighting his brother to pad his record would have been utterly impossible to get away with. Not to mention Marciano's brother was a middleweight.

As for Ted Lowry, Lowry was a tough, experienced and thoroughly well-traveled journeyman fighter who faced numerous contenders and many of the elites of that era (Archie Moore, Joey Maxim, Jimmy Bivins, Marciano, etc.) during his career. He was sort of like the 1940s-'50s equivalent of a Ross Purrity; a guy with a mediocre win/loss average, but who faces numerous top fighters, is hardly ever stopped, is often competitive, and occasionally pulls off an upset. Lowry had an awkward style, was defensively skilled, and could punch as well, but he never had any good management, lacked a fighter's killer instinct, and spent most of his career traveling around acting as an opponent for name fighters, going the distance, but losing, typically in competitive decisions. He did beat a few second-tier fighters, and drew with longtime ranked contenders Lee Savold and Lee Oma.
Reportedly, Lowry gave the inexperienced Marciano a very rough time in their first meeting, and seemed to be in charge of the fight for the first four rounds, before he started to tire out under Marciano's body attack, and Marciano outlanded him at a rate of three-to-one from the fifth round on to get the UD. It was a close match, and the Providence Journal sportswriter actually scored it 6-4 for Lowry, although most other observer accounts I've seen have not indicated that the decision was unusual. In their rematch, a more-mature Marciano won handily, though Lowry still lasted the distance and was never so much as put down. Marciano later said that he thought Lowry would've gone the distance with him every time even if they'd fought 100 times, because his style was just too difficult.

[funso banjo baby]

cheers man