BoxRec

I dont know if i seen a topic on him. the reason i decided to make on one hi mwas when i found out how old he was when he faced rocky marciano. he had just turned 20 a day before the fight.

and of course we all heard vingo was a bright upcoming prospect, and faced marciano and was knocked down early twice, but managed to get up and stun marciano on numerous occasions and came close to flooring rock and the battle turned into a slugfest for 6 rounds with vingo being floored 3 times but vingo managing to get in hard punches of his own. in the 6th round marciano knocked vingo out cold, and vingo had to be rushed to the hospital and regained conscious and memory after a couple weeks. because of injuries sustained, he was never able to fight again. his career ended at only 20 years old with a 16-2 record. marciano and vingo became good friends after.

of course before that fight, vingo hadnt fought much of competetion and beat on club fighters with the best fighter he beat was respectable don mogard when he was only 19.

but he did step up to face marciano who was 36-0 and stil lraw but more experienced, and from what i have heard and read, vingo put up a greta preformance and showed potential in that bout.

at 6'4 190-195 lbs, do u think had he not gotten permantely injured, he had the potential to be heavyweight champion of the world??? consider he had just turned 20 when he faced marciano. by the time he was 25 vingo could have grown into a mature 6'4 210 heavyweight if not bigger. he also showed that he could hit hard.

what do some of you guys think of him or have heard of him???
any old timers on here actually seem him fight or have in depth knowledge on his career.

bump

im interested to hear on what some of u guys have to say about vingo as a possible future champion. and some of u older guys on here heard a lot about him or read about him, so post ur opinion.

he was only 20, 6'4 190lbs, who knows by the time he was 25 would have been a matured 6'4 210lbs with a lot of power.

too bad they dont have the vingo marciano fight on tape. i wish marciano didnt put him in a coma, cuase i would have loved to see how good vingo would have done in the rest of his career. who knows

vingo reminds me of james shuler. both very young, pretty much undefeated with loads of potential and both get in the ring with two power punches and shueler gets knocked out easily then dies in a freak accident and vingo puts on a great slugfest until he takes too many punches and gets knocked unconsious and never fights again. who knows how both their careers would have turned out.

It's hard to comment on a fighter you've never seen fight. Are there films of this fight?

Years ago I did read an article in World Boxing about this matchup. It basically said that Vingo was considered a very good prospect, and several writers actually thought he could be beat the rock. And as you noted, it said he gave Rocky a very tough fight before being stopped. Of course, there were quite a few fighters that gave Rocky tough fights before he KOd them. That seemed to be Rocky's MO.

Vingo was not as good as his record indicated. The angle of Marciano vs Vingo was two fold. The fight pitted a pitted Massachusetts heavyweight vs New York heavyweight. Back in the day, geographic rivalries were much greater than they are today. The fight also had a particular buzz within the Italian American community as the winner here would advance to contender status. The back drop for the fight was set. There were two young heavyweights with excellent records ready to go.

In hindsight, this was a mis match as Vingo had never beaten anyone decent, nor had he gone past six rounds. He wasn’t much of a puncher either.

In boxing, a recipe for disaster is to match a man with too much guts for his own good vs another man with a murderous punch. To make matters worse, Vingo was fighting in front of his home town fans. Indeed, Marciano nearly killed Vingo. Had tradegy struck, Maricano might have hung up his gloves for good.

well consider the fact vingo turned 20 the day before the marciano fight, and vingo had acutally fought and beat a couple journeyman, i could easily say vingo had the potential to be a futue champ.

vingo was 6'4 190 lbs, and he was so young. he did hit with some power, and marciano still mentions vingo hit him really hard and he was almost out on his feet a couple times. who knows give vingo another 4 5 years of training, hell be 25 and probably 6'4 over 200 lbs and with a good punch.