TONY PENECALE’S ROCKY MARCIANO TRIBUTE ARTICLE AND POEM

Posted on | June 11, 2009 | No Comments

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO TONY AND RICH TALK WITH A COUPLE BROCKTON, MASSACHUSETTS FOLKS WHO KNEW ROCKY MARCIANO PERSONALLY

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ROCKY MARCIANO

By: Tony Penecale

Rocky Marciano
An Italian Boxing Sensation
His Hard-core Fighting Style
Captured the Heart of the Entire Nation

The Greatest Heavyweight Champ
Had the Nickname of “The Rock”
He Could Take a Solid Punch,
for his Chin was an Iron Block

His Forte was his Toughness,
Often Fighting through the Blood
And when his Punches Landed
They did so with a Thud

He Rose to Title Contention
Beating Joe Louis on the Way
To Get a Shot at Walcott
In ’52 Came his Day

It was September Twenty-third
In the City of Brotherly Love
Though Walcott gave a Fight
Rock finally rose above

Knocked to the Seat of his Pants
And Cut Around the Eyes
He Waded through the Punches
As if They Were from Flies

As the 13th Round Began
The Rock’s Chances were Running Low
He needed a KO to win
Which He got with Single Blow

He Threw a Short Right Hand
That Walcott Never Saw
The Lights Had Been Turned Off
The Moment it Struck his Jaw

The Rock Made Six Defenses
Before Hanging Up the Gloves
He was a Quiet, Prideful Champion
That Every Fan Still Loves

He Retired Undefeated
Going 49 and 0
With 43 of his Wins
Coming by KO

The Only Time He Lost
And it Proved to be the First
When his Airplane Struck a Tree
And Into Flames it Burst

It’s Been Thirty Years
Since We Laid the Rock to Rest
Champs Have Come and Gone
But he’ll Always be the Best

Tony Penecale – 1999

Rocky Marciano
Published from the South Philadelphia Italian Newsletter – 2004

It’s been 35 years since a tragic plane crash took the life of heavyweight champion Rocky Marciano. 48 years have tolled by since he retired undefeated, the only champion to finish his career with a perfect record in over 100 years of gloved boxing. His record of 49-0 still stands today. His is consistently placed in all reputable Top Ten lists of the great heavyweight champions, including those composed by Ali, Foreman, and Frazier. And yet his legacy and spirit continue to battle for the recognition he deserves.

There is a trend usually among those who equate greatness with color film, whether it be old movies or old fighters, to dismiss Marciano’s claim to glory as a fabrication of his fans. Ignorant of history, and lacking the motivation to reverse their ignorance, they happily conclude the Rock is overrated. To bolster their contention, they claim he was too small, too awkward, too anything their favorite fighter is not. They fail to se that overcoming such obvious short-comings is a mark of greatness.

Among modern critics, there is a fallacy to shunt Marciano aside as if her were an obscure fighter turned into a legend by fans years after the fact. They distrust the journalist and critics of an earlier day, those who sat at ringside and saw Marciano take a terrible beating from Walcott, only to come back and knock the champion off his throne with one of the most devastating punches to ever encounter a human jaw. Lesser scribes of a disillusioned era discount the words of masters of sports writing such as A.J. Liebling, who saw the man fight, not on faded black and white films but in the flesh, under the harsh lights, in bouts that were not lines in a record book but were the stuff of high drama, without foregone conclusions.

To fairly assess Marciano, we must rely on his standing in the era. Did he become great only in retrospect? Did his tragic death at an early age lift him above the stature he had achieved with deeds? The answer to both questions is “no” and the proof was established while the man still lived.

One need only to go through the writings of the time, the old newspaper and magazines, the words set to paper hours after the event, to get a feel of his impact on the boxing world. Were Rocky so overrated, how did he burn so brightly among the other bright stars of his time? Sugar Ray Robinson was there; Willie Pep, Sandy Saddler, Archie Moore were active. It was not a time of bogus titles and “champions” standing in the ring with a half dozen belts draped over their shoulders like confetti, and worth about as much. The champions had to fight the contenders, and there weren’t a baker’s dozen Top Ten lists from which to pick and chose the least dangerous opponent. It was a time of better math, when there could only be one number one contender, one number two contender, and so-forth and so-on in a logic so simple and pure it boggles the mind we don’t accept it today.

In such an era, and among such competition, Marciano was named Ring Magazine Fighter of the Year threw times; in 1952, 1954, and 1955. Only Joe Louis (4 times) and Muhammad Ali (5 times) earned Fighter of the Year more often than Marciano.

Rocky was a humble man who seldom banged his own drum and hoped his deeds in the ring would speak for him. And were his deeds not enough, other fighters have spoken.
George Foreman said, “Just look at Rocky’s record. Nobody beat him. You can’t take that away from him.” Archie Moore recalled,” He had more stamina than anyone. He was like a bull with boxing gloves. He was the strongest man, bar none, I ever met in the ring, and I fought some strong men.” Jack Dempsey asserted, “Rocky Marciano is the hardest-hitting heavyweight champion I have seen.” Joe Frazier said, “He was a great fighter and a great man.” And Ali said, “He could take a punch and would just keep coming. He was rugged, a great fighter.”

I am reminded of something Marciano said after speaking at a school. The kids asked how he would do against then current champion, Floyd Patterson. Picture Rocky, somewhat reserved, unwilling to boast or put down another fighter, as he replied, “If I said I could beat him, I’d be bragging. If I said I couldn’t, I’d be lying.”

And if we say Rocky was one of the greatest fighters of all time, it might be bragging, but to say otherwise is surely a lie.

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