Rocky Marciano's Last Professional Fight. Boxer Rocky Marciano, undefeated in 49 professional fights and heavyweight champion of the world from 1952 to 1955, retired after his last title bout, a titanic battle with light-heavyweight champion Archie Moore. . Marciano's Last Rocky Marciano fought 49 professional boxing bouts and won them all. He knocked out 43 of his opponents with his sledgehammer punches. He beat Joe Louis in the twilight of the Brown Bomber's career. He beat Jersey Joe Walcott and Ezzard Charles twice each. He reigned as heavyweight champion of the world for three years. And in September 1955, in what would be the last fight of his career, Marciano felled the aging, brilliant light-heavyweight champion, Archie Moore, in what is considered one of the great heavyweight title bouts in boxing history. Marciano vs. Moore had it all: a bullish slugger of a champion, at the peak of his power and still indefatigable at 31, facing a crafty, resourceful 38-year-old lightheavyweight boxer, the veteran of 144 previous battles; a crowd of 61,574 at Yankee Stadium in New York, packed with luminaries and celebrities; a closed-circuit television broadcast watched by almost half a million people across the United States; a dramatic back-and-forth struggle that included five knockdowns, four by the champion and one by the challenger; a sixth round that stands as one of the most savage exchanges of punches ever seen in the annals of professional boxing; a thrilling display of brute force by Marciano, and of courage and ringcraft by Moore; and a satisfying conclusion that proved to be the culmination of both fighters' careers. Marciano practiced a brutally simple approach to the sport. He had a powerful right hook, which he liked to call "Suzie Q" and which he threw with such force that, if he missed, he often tumbled to the canvas from his own momentum. "'Shifting,' or moving to the side, and 'milling in retreat,' or moving back, are innovations of the late eighteenth century that Rocky's advisers have carefully kept from his knowledge," New Yorker journalist A. J. Liebling observed, "lest they spoil his natural prehistoric style." That prehistoric style carried the Brockton Blockbuster, as the press dubbed Marciano, to 35 straight victories totaling 146 rounds--an average of just over four rounds per fight. Only two of Marciano's first nine opponents lasted past the first round. In 1951 he fought Joe Louis, the former titleholder who was attempting a comeback at age 37. Although Louis outpointed him for most of the fight, Marciano pummelled his opponent unmercifully and knocked him out in the eighth round. Marciano won four more bouts--all by knockout--before finally earning a shot at the heavyweight title at age 29. The title bout, against Jersey Joe Walcott, took place on September 23, 1952, at Philadelphia's Municipal Stadium. Walcott decked Marciano in the first round before the two heavyweights settled into a bloody struggle. Walcott led on points through the 12th round, but in the 13th Marciano landed one of his trademark right hooks. Walcott went down, and the Brockton Blockbuster became the heavyweight champion of the world. Eight months later Marciano successfully defended his title by knocking out Walcott in the first round. He defended his title four more times over the next three years, including a win over former champion Ezzard Charles in 1954 that went the full distance--the only 15-round fight of Marciano's career. After dispatching the British champion Don Cockell, Marciano agreed to a title defense against Archie Moore, the popular light-heavyweight champion. The fight, on September 21, 1955, received more publicity than any heavyweight contest since the Jack Dempsey-Gene Tunney wars of the 1920s. The heavyweight champion came in a 4-1 favorite over the light-heavyweight champion. Moore weighed 188 pounds, Marciano 188? Former champions paraded into the ring at . Yankee Stadium: Dempsey, Tunney, Louis, Max Baer, Jim Braddock. At just after 10:30 PM, Marciano entered the ring with his entourage. Next came Moore, resplendent in a splendid black silk robe trimmed with gold lamé. He faced Marciano for the prefight handshake with "his eyebrows rising like storm clouds," as Liebling put it. Marciano, meanwhile, "more than ever ... resembled a Great Dane who has heard the word 'bone.'" The first round went predictably, with Marciano flinging left hooks to set up the right hand, and Moore slipping out of range. In the second, Marciano backed his opponent toward the ropes before Moore stepped inside a Marciano hook and "sent a straight right to the face that dropped Marciano to one knee," according to the New York Times. It was one of the few times in Marciano's career that he ever went down, and he was up again two seconds later. The quick recovery seemed to momentarily baffle Moore. "When the round ended, the edge of Moore's speed was gone," Liebling wrote, "and he knew that he would have to set a new and completely different trap, with diminished resources ... anyway, there was Moore at the end of the second, dragging his shattered faith in the unities and humanities back to his corner. He had hit a guy right, and the guy hadn't gone." Marciano waded in after that, throwing barrages of punches that mostly landed on Moore's arms, shoulders, and head. He staggered Moore in the fourth, and then hit the challenger with a right to the face just after the bell sounded. Moore responded in kind, popping Marciano with a right, but his punches were beginning to lose their force: "It was a good thing Moore couldn't see Marciano's face as he came back to his corner," Liebling wrote, "because the champion was laughing." Marciano dropped Moore twice in the titanic sixth round, but he absorbed almost as much punishment as he gave. The sixth "will probably be referred to by this generation as comparable to any single round in heavyweight title history," the New York Times reported. "For every punch Rocky threw, Archie threw one back. All semblance of boxing was forgotten as the tremendously strong athletes flailed away at each other with a fury that bordered on the heroic." Moore was fighting Marciano's style, and as the exhausted fighters staggered to their corners after the sixth round it seemed that the end was drawing near. Moore, however, summoned from somewhere inside himself the resilience of a champion. "In the seventh," Liebling wrote, "after that near approach to obliteration, the embattled intellect put up its finest stand." Dodging and landing punches to Marciano's torso, Moore scored repeatedly. A lesser fighter might have wilted, but Marciano's superb conditioning enabled him to withstand Moore's comeback. He knocked the challenger down once more at the end of the eighth with a right to the head. Moore was still down at the count of six when the bell rang, ending the round. Now the outcome was inevitable. Marciano pounded away, and although Moore returned the fire, he had finally run out of steam. One minute and 19 seconds into the ninth round, Marciano landed several rights to the head. Moore slumped to the canvas, one arm hooked over the rope. At the count of eight he attempted to rise, but fell back exhausted. He never lost consciousness. "It was a crushing defeat for the higher faculties," Liebling observed, "and a lesson in intellectual humility, but [Moore] had made a hell of a fight." "Rocky got the victory," the New York Times reported. "Archie received the acclaim." Afterward Marciano admitted that his mother had been begging him to quit boxing and that he was considering it. He never fought again. He retired the following April, undefeated in 49 professional bouts. Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
