Rocky Marciano is one of the few heavyweight champions that left the sport of boxing at the highest level undefeated without suffering a single defeat.
If you go back at the time he fought some great opposition too and even Joe Louis later on but not once was he beaten. He was a small heavyweight too, even a bit smaller than people like Mike Tyson, Marciano might have been around 5 feet and nine and a half inches in height but made up for this with tenacity, heart, iron chin, crazy stamina and brilliant hooks and good knockout power.
But new fans to the sport may not know that when he turned professional Marciano struggled with the basics and fundamentals of professional boxing hugely, it took much time for him to get up to speed technically.
He was massively frustrated in the gym early on as a professional working on things like distance, footwork and other technical aspects needed to a somewhat good level to have certainly success at the world title level.
Rocky Marciano, Where Determination Overcame Ability
Some fans might just tune and even see late on in their careers the likes of Golovkin, Hatton and others brawling and relying on their power but these people believe it or not were technically brilliant boxers when they wanted to be as well.
Not Marciano though.
He learned it all from scratch from the ground up in the gym as a professional and still after all that went undefeated 49-0 as a heavyweight — a record for heavyweight champions that still stands to this day — even after all these years.
In what was maybe a more competitive time for the heavyweight division as well when he boxed, making the record even more impressive.
Only for his life to be cut short early in a plane crash and ending his professional boxing career as well — immortal forever however as an undefeated legend of boxing.
Some people in other sports go through their careers and even their lives never fulfilling their potential because of booze, drugs or whatever, George Best in soccer comes to mind — he could have been the Muhammad Ali of soccer and gone far further and being the best soccer player that ever lived — but he didn’t bother maximizing his ability.
Not the case with Marciano, he did.
