BoxRec

who would have james jeffries had fought next if he didnt retire???? would ha have fought burns??? or marvin hart???

and who wouldmaciano have fought next???? a young floyd patterson or young liston??? or coming up cleveland williams.

This is a tricky question. The fighters who retire while on top do so because they don't feel they have any challenges, either perceived or in reality, and that applied to both Marciano and Jeffries. So to suppose who they would have fought next is hard to do, because any fighter who doesn't have his heart in the sport can be seriously hurt if he fights anyway.

If memory serves, they tried to lure Marciano out of retirement to face Patterson...but he wisely elected to stay retired. On the face of it, you'd think he would have destroyed the glass jawed Patterson...but then you have to think for a minute...Patterson had two of the fastest hands in heavyweight history...and Marciano would be coming back from a 2 or 3 year layoff, rusty as hell........

Marciano was said to have actually gone into training with a view to fight Ingemar Johansen.
But when he realised the magic wasn`t there and he could not get to his fighting best he changed his mind, sensibly.

tonyevs wrote:Marciano was said to have actually gone into training with a view to fight Ingemar Johansen.
But when he realised the magic wasn`t there and he could not get to his fighting best he changed his mind, sensibly.

Thats what I heard to.

I understand that Lou Duva was helping to train The Rock as well.

As for Marciano going for 50-0 I have always assumed that it would have been the young Floyd Patterson next in line. Like already said my first thought would be the rough, tough relentless Marciano would destroy the less than iron chinned Patterson.

But Patterson had lighting fast handspeed and very good Boxing skills and was also young, fresh and full of ambition. I could see Patterson giving Marciano some problems and even building up a small points lead, but sooner or later I see even the slightly jaded Marciano catching up with Floyd and stopping him in about 8-12 rounds.

This is of course assuming that Patterson didn't manage a cuts stoppage.

Yeah the rock was getting fed up of his manager al weill and never forgave weill for cheating out of his money in the cockell fight. Marciano got determined for one last fight in moore. BUt he was startting to lose it. He was nearing 33 and was shwoing signs of aging.

sweetscientist i know u have a grudge against marciano so i will no longer get in a debate with u. u never listen to anyones responses. u only attack personally. ur not mature enough to have an intelligent convo.

and u have a lack of knowledge because the only one marciano considered coming out of retirment to fight was johannsen. but by now marciano was around 37 38 and he went to the gym for a month and worked out but he realized he didnt have it anymore, and if he couldnt put 100% into training and conditioning, he would be very susceptible. I still think he would have beaten johanssen though.

And also he didnt want to fight for Al weill anymore. he was sick of jim norris and the IBC. Al weill did a lot for marciano in terms of getting their and getting the big fights. but al weill was very shrewd and drove marciano crazy with his relentless antics.

a reporter once asked marciano if he thought he could beat patterson. marciano replied "if i said yes, id be bragging, if i said no id be lying".
hahaa good one.

Brockton,

Rocky retired already before his 49h fight, due to back pain. He had major pain, beat all top heavies already and had nothing more to proove. He only fought the 49th because Archie Moore dodgedly followed him and calling him out, even calling him a coward for retiring withou fighting him.

So Rocky decided to fight him, though he was in terrible pain and no longer had any need for money. So he did beat him then retired.

Already Rocky did not want or need to fight. At that time Floyd and Liston were not the top dogs so there was not even the prospect of a fight agaisnt them. So the case is a bit strange: why stick around years more, when he already beat all top dogs, had back pain, had made enough money and there were no worthy opponents left?

He made the right decision: he cleaned his plate and retired. No point in aggravating that back problem just for a couple bucks more.

Look at Holyfield or Tyson: they just did not know when to quit this dangerous business and stuck around too long getting pummeled needlessly.

Another smart boxer was Lewis: he had a bad performance, couldnt get in shape and decided it is time to hang them up.


If you want to get philisophical, then eventually Rocky would have lost: aging and the back problem would have seen to that. The same is true for any other boxer. The smart ones retire when pain, injury or simpl age and tear and wear dont let you perform at 100% anymore.

The less smart ones fight on and on, no matter ho crapy their performance gets (see Ali, Holmes, Foreman, Frazier, Holyfield, Bowe, Tyson).

No one can keep fighting at high level forever. The smart thing is to make some money, get a title, ideally get some glory, then walk away with your health intact and the bank account full, so you wont need another job again.

I am currently reading Marciano's bio, and it says Marciano was troubled with back pains from early on in his career. He even fought one of his early fights with a slipped disc, which was so painful for him that his opponent thought Rocky just had a very unorthodox stance and never caught on to what the actual problem was. Imagine how painful that must have been.

Marciano had a whole series of different exercises and stretching he had to do just to keep his back in check. He had to spend most of his time in trainingcamp even when he didn't have a fight scheduled because his back would be so much worse if he discontinued his training regimen.

After the second fight with Ezzard Charles he was bacially burned out and the fight to get motivated for Don Cockell and Archie Moore was tougher for him than the actual fights with those guys. After the Moore fight he was sick and tired of training and fighting and wisely chose to retire with a bank full of money.

It takes an enormous amount of dicipline for a man to put himself through what Marciano put himself through to be a world champion. 99 of 100 other figters would or could not have gone through with it. During his fighting years Marciano would spend most of his time in training camps, practially gave up sex and spending time with his family. As a result his marrige and social life suffered greatly.
Marciano was one self diciplined, tough SOB. They don't make'em like him anymore.

-KOKid-