Rocky Marciano, a favorite of working-class boxing fans in the 1950s, inspired the fictional Rocky Balboa in the films from 1976 to 2015.
Like Rocky Balboa, Rocky Marciano had a sweet, unassuming temperament. Like Rocky Balboa, Rocky Marciano lived clean, worked hard and punched like a jackhammer.
Rocky Marciano
Like Rocky Balboa, Rocky Marciano adopted an unusual training regimen that gave him more stamina than anyone in boxing. He ran uphill at full speed, then back down backward. He went shoulder deep in a swimming pool and threw punches for 45 minutes. Every day, including Christmas, he jogged six to seven miles.
Most of all, he had heart.
Rocky Marciano refused to believe he couldn’t win all the time, according to his biographer Emanuela Audisio. “There are some who never give up,” he wrote. [They] “always win: with a broken nose, with closed eye, a blood-red mouth. Rocky was like this. Rough, wild, graceless.
Rocky Marciano
Unlike Rocky Balboa, Rocky Marciano came from Brockton, Mass.
He was born Rocco Francis Marchegiano on Sept. 1, 1923, the oldest son of six children of Italian immigrants. He played baseball and football in high school, but dropped out before graduation. He went to work with his father in a Brockton shoe factory.
The U.S. Army drafted him in 1943 during World War II and sent him overseas. He realized his potential as a boxer after he decked an Australian during a brawl in a Welsh pub. While finishing out his service in Fort Lewis, Wash., he won the 1946 amateur armed forces boxing tournament.
After his discharge he fought on the amateur circuit. Critics said he had a clumsy technique. He took punch after punch while waiting for a chance to deliver a punishing blow. (To see a highlights video of Marciano’s career, click here.)
In 1947, he and a group of friends went to Fayetteville, N.C., to try out for a Chicago Cubs farm team. The team cut him after three weeks, and he devoted the rest of his athletic career to professional boxing.
Name Change
When a ring announcer in Providence, R.I., couldn’t pronounce ‘Marchegiano,’ he changed it to Marciano.
He beat Jersey Joe Walcott for the heavyweight title on September 23, 1952 in Philadelphia, becoming the Great White Hope in an age when African-Americans won nearly all the championships. Some say Rocky Marciano was popular simply because he was white.
Rocky Marciano, though, was no racist. He idolized Joe Louis, who he knocked out on Oct. 26, 1951 at Madison Square Garden. After the old fighter retired, Rocky Marciano helped him out financially.
He reigned as champion from that day in 1952 to April 27, 1956.
Unidentified man, Marciano, Boston Mayor John Collins, singer Jimmy Durante.
Secret of Success
Though Rocky was always an underdog, he was the only heavyweight champion to finish his career with no defeats. Forty-three of his 49 wins were knockouts.
He won because he trained himself into a physical condition that gave him more stamina and energy than his opponent. He walked 75 blocks from his room to the gym, drank very little and carried a jar of honey in his pocket to sweeten his coffee.
Marciano always ate vegetables and chewed but never swallowed steak, spitting it into a bowl. He exercised his eyes with a pendulum over his bed. For one fight, he trained 250 rounds – far more than his competitors.
Up to three months before a fight, Rocky Marciano secluded himself from his wife and family. A week before a fight he refused to look at mail, take a phone call, meet new people, shake hands or go for a car ride.
“He just had more stamina than anyone in those days,” said fellow boxer Archie Moore. “He was like a bull with gloves.”
Hometown Hero
Rocky Marciano’s professional career spanned a time when the Italian population peaked in Brockton: 1947 to 1956. Then, about one in four Brockton residents had an Italian surname or Italian heritage. It was a time of rising prosperity and acceptance for Italian Americans. The “Brockton Bomber” wasn’t just a hometown hero; he was a hero to many Italian Americans.
After he retired, he fixated on making money. Marciano was terrified of dying broke, and traveled the country making personal appearances and investing in business deals – restaurants, farms, a bowling alley. He relentlessly sought and saved cash. He also became a womanizer.
On Aug. 31, 1969, the eve of his 46th birthday, Rocky Marciano died in a small plane crash in Newton, Iowa.
Images: Rocky Marciano, three-quarters: By Mohamed Said Momo – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49230741; Rocky Marciano, head shot: By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16565141. Image of Marciano in group shot By City of Boston Archives from West Roxbury, United States – Unidentified man, boxer Rocky Marciano, Mayor John F. Collins, and singer Jimmy Durante, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=60786724This story was updated in 2022.
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[…] athletes like Rocky Marciano, Dom DiMaggio and his brother Joe enlisted in the military. The DiMaggios’ parents weren’t U.S. […]
[…] The movie tells the story of Rocky Balboa, an underachieving boxer from Philadelphia who seems content to fight at his local gym while also working as muscle for the mob. His name and boxing style is inspired by Rocky Marciano. […]
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