In his time Rocky Marciano was not given the credit he was due. He was not appreciated. He was seen as a slow, clumy slugger with no class.
Marciano never took the "
easy road" as some of his later critics accused gim of. Because his style was not fashionable, he had to wait, and wait for his shot. Unlike a lot of today's Heavyweights who are just given world title shots for having unbeaten records, (Johnson, Arreola, Chisora) Rocky had to beat practically ALL of the top contenders before Walcott agreed to fight him.
Marciano arrived in the upper echylons of Heavyweight division by beating the hard-hitting Rex Layne (who had beaten Walcott a year previous)... Rocky then juggernauted his way through other top contenders like Freddie Beshore and Lee Savold.
An interesting point of fact regarding the Marciano vs Louis fight... Despite public belief, Rocky DID NOT want to fight Louis, as Joe had been his childhood hero. But Weill convinced Rocky that if he was ever going to be taken seriously, he had to fight Louis, who was on a succesful comeback trail. And so, the fight occurred and Rocky KO'd him.
Even beating the great Joe Louis was not enough to get a title shot. The new champion Walcott refused to accept Rocky as a legitimate contender saying that he was "crude". And so Rocky fought on throughout 1952 KOing Buonvino and Bertie Reynolds. Then Marciano faced the number one contender, Harry "Kid" Matthews, who had not lost a fight in over 9 years.
Rocky knocked him out too. And became the legitimate number one contender.
He grafted the hard way and finally, Walcott couldn't resue him a title shot.
The public's distain toward Rocky was fulled by Walcott, who (like Charles and Louis before him) was seen as a "good guy" and a tremendously skilled boxer. Walcott belittled Rocky as a fighter and publically announced that he would rretre if Marciano beat him.
After a gruelling and spectacular fight, Rocky knocked him out.
Marciano was olbiged to give Walcott a rematch because that was a condition in the contract, which Walcott (having retired after the fight) decided to activate.
(
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1952/ ... return-to/)
Walcott lasted one round.
In his title reign Marciano give LaStarza a world title shot, because 3 years previous LaSatarza had narrowly lost to The Rock... And the second time round Marciano stopped him.
Rocky then fought the former champion, Ezzard Charkes twice... Charles had been on somehwat of a good run, beating 2 top contenders on his way to getting title shots. Rocky beat him in both fights.
Rocky had planned to retire in 1955, after defeating Cockell. But the mouthy Light Heavyweight Champion, Archie Moore insulted Rocky publicly and, guranteed everyone that he would knock Rocky out. And so, Rocky fought him, and knocked him out.
There has been specualtion about Nino Valdes and why Rocky never fought him. The truth is Valdes was a terribly inconsistent fighter.
Hell, during Rocky's title reign he couldn't even be described as a top contender, haivng lost to Archie Moore twice and losing consistently to other top contenders, Bob Satterfield and Bob Baker.
Rocky avoiding Valdes? Absolute nonsence, every time Valdes had a shot to get into world title contention he blew it.
As well as the above examples that I have already given, during them time Rocky retired, Valdes also lost to Folley and Machen.
He was never getting a world title shot, when the other contenders were beating him consistently.
(In that regard he was a bit like Lee Savold).
To be blunt, the same argument could be made in the cases of Satterfield and Baker, and how Rocky apparently "avoided" them too.
The truth is if Marciano had've fought Satterfield and Babker, the public would have been accusing Marciano of avoiding Charles.
And at the time, there was a a media contingent who believed that Cahrles would be too classy for Marciano.
I hope this answers your question. It is easy to look back at any fighters career and ask: "Well why didn't he fight Mr. ABC during this time"...
As well as any Heavyweight in history, Rocky had to work for his shot and he did beat more top contenders that pratically everyone else.
(and I'm talking when he was a contender, not as a champion as his title reign was relatively short).
The reason he retired was because he suffered from chronic back-pain and Rocky's wife had been nagging him to quite for some time (since the return fight against Walcott).
She repeatedly reassured him "that he had nothing to prove anymore".
As has been verified by Peter Marciano.
