How Tough Was Marciano???
To succeed with his style of fighting, Rocky had to be tough. A brawler has to be able to take it as well as dish it out. With the shortest arms of any heavyweight champion ever, Marciano had to walk through the punches of his bigger, longer armed opponents in order to land his punches. Like a tank going after artillery, that type fighter must weather the hits he's sure to take in order to get in range to strike back. Only the bravest fighters, with the most heart, will last long with such a strategy.
There's no denying Rocky could be hit. He wasn't the wide open target critics like to claim, and to hit him there was a heavy price tag involved, but he did take a lot of hard punches.
"As indestructible as any fighter in history, Marciano walked into-and through- thousands of hard, clean, jolting shots in the manner of a human steamroller...Always ready to take two or three punches to land one." Bert Sugar ("The 100 Greatest Fighters")
"He trained himself down to that fine condition, he trained himself fanatically, because that type of fighter...has to be able to take the punishment early in the fight while the other fighter is fresh, until he starts to wade through the punches and wear his opponent down.
It's the toughest kind of fighter to be and that's why there've been so few great fighters in the heavyweight division of that kind. Dempsey, Marciano, Frazier, all of a type. Indomitable will, get knocked down, get up, keep coming on until they just impose themselves on their opponents no matter who they were." Larry Merchant
Walcott drops the Rock for the first time in his career with a left hook.
"I wasn't hurt by the punch," Rocky said later. "Not even dazed."
"Marciano must be made of iron." Felix Bocchicchio, Walcott's manager. (Look magazine, Jan. 1953)
"It was hard to tell if Rocky was ever in trouble, because hitting him was like hitting a stone wall. If he was ever hurt, he didn't show it." Referee Ruby Goldstein after the Marciano/Louis fight.
"He was tough, real tough... he's a good fighter. Better than people realize." Joe Louis to Wendell Smith of the Pittsburgh Courier after his fight with Marciano in 1952.
"Marciano was one of those people who really didn’t care how much he got hit, so jabbing him was easy. He’d almost, if you missed a jab…he’d apologize, ‘Scuze me, throw that again. I’ll see if I can get my face in the middle there.’...He was probably the greatest example of a guy who’s a battering ram and is willing to get in and take any kind of punishment to deliver his own." Ferdie Pacheco
"He came at him fast with an assortment of punches, and he hit Rocky with a lot of combinations where he'd put together five or six punches in a row. Most fighters would grab on and wait for their heads to clear after being hit by a good combination. But this is where Marciano was a discouraging-type fighter. After a fighter hit him with some of his best punches, Rocky would come chasing right after him, back him up against the ropes, and throw seven or eight punches of his own." Referee Goldstein after the first Marciano/Charles fignt.
Ezzard Charles lands a solid blow to Rocky's jaw.
"If Marciano's jaw isn't made of iron, it's at least made of poured concrete."Arthur Daley.
Rocky's split nose after the second fight with Charles.
In their second fight, Ezzard Charles missed an uppercut and hit Marciano with his elbow, splitting his left nostril wide open.
"It's split in half," Goldman graoned in the corner. "How we gonna stop the bleeding?"
"You ain't," Allie Colombo shouted. "There's no way you're going to stop that. Rock, you gotta get him! You gotta get him, or they could stop the fight!"
"Go after him now or you'll bleed to death," Goldman told Marciano.
In a fury, Rocky charged out of his corner, blood flying, and battered Charles to the mat. Ezzard gamely rose at four, but Marciano was relentless, knocking him out with a furious combination of punches.
"It was amazing," New England promoter Sam Silverman said. "The fight couldn't possibly have gone another round without the referee stopping it. They just couldn't stop the bleeding. It had to be an elbow. No punch could make a cut like that. There was Rocky in the middle of a tough fight, but when he had to KO Charles, he did. It was unbelievable."
"And when you got in there with him, you got the feeling, ‘I gotta kill this guy to win; he’s not gonna stop coming.’ No matter what happens…nose gets spit in two, he’s coming…his eyes are fallin’ apart, he’s comin’..he just keeps on comin’. And, it scared half the guys half to death." Ferdie Pacheco
"The famous photo of 'The Rock' pulling apart his nose after Ezzard Charles literally split it down the middle speaks volumes about the undefeated champion's toughness. He could not be dissuaded by a steady boxing lesson, like the one he received from Joe Walcott for 13 rounds, nor by absorbing the heavy leather he inevitably received. Marciano always saw the light at the end of the tunnel that kept him swinging to win." World Boxing, Fall 1998 Picking Marciano as the toughest of all heavyweight champions.
Boxing Scene listed boxing's "10 greatest chins" in their 1991 issue. Here they are in no particular order.
Joe Grim, Tom Sharkey, Jake LaMotta, Rocky Marciano, George Chuvalo, Muhammad Ali, Vito Antuofermo, Randy "Tex" Cobb, Marvin Hagler, Julio Cesar Chavez. Boxing Scene 1991; "The 10 Greatest Chins".
