Rocky Retires

As a little kid, he was something of a weakling and a crybaby. Even after he toughened up to hold his own in boyhood brawls on the vacant lots of Brockton, Mass. (pop. 65,000), Rocco Francis Marchegiano had little taste for fighting. He dreamed of big-league baseball, and he grew up to try just about everything else--ditchdigger, dishwasher, candy mixer, truck driver, snow shoveler and, in 1943, soldier. In the Army, Marchegiano discovered that as a soldier he made a good prizefighter. A civilian again, he tried amateur boxing, and did so well that he turned pro in 1947. He changed his name to Rocky Marciano, and he was on his way. The way was straight up.

He was an awkward, hardheaded slugger, willing to take a punch to land one. But when he landed, his opponent usually dropped. Rocky never really bothered to learn how to box; he never really had to. Without losing a fight, he battered his way up through the heavyweight ranks. It took him only eight rounds to dispose of Joe Louis and ruin the comeback of that puffy remnant of a great champ. Later, he won the title by flattening Heavyweight Champion Joe Walcott in the 13th round, after being knocked down in the third for the first time in his professional life. In a return bout, it took him only one round to stop Jersey Joe.

No Bother. There was no one around to bother the new champ. Roland La Starza, Ezzard Charles and Don Cockell, challengers of minor talents, tried, and they all came to pieces under Rocky's ham-handed macing. Last year Light Heavyweight Champion Archie Moore managed to put Rocky on the canvas for the second time in his pro career, but the champ righted himself as solidly as a hogshead of ale, and in the ninth round knocked Moore out. He was 31, and he still couldn't box, but there was still no one around to bother him. He had won all his 49 fights, 43 by knockouts. He took a vacation.

With time and money to relax, Rocky found that he enjoyed being a family man. Last week, after breaking the news to his manager, Al Weill, he announced that he was going to quit the ring while he still had his title and his health. He is the only heavyweight champion ever to retire without a defeat on his record.*

No Champ. Magnanimously, Rocky suggested that ancient (42) Archie Moore, his last victim, has the best chance to take over his title. It is as good a guess as any, and considering the source, perhaps the best. The list of heavyweight contenders is a list of palookas. Hurricane Jackson, an ill wind from New York, Bob Baker, a pudge-pot from Pittsburgh, Johnny Holman a clown from Chicago, are the three top contenders, and a good kangaroo ought to be able to outwit any one of them for the title. Aside from Moore, the only real fighter with the skill to take over is another brilliant, but young (21), light heavyweight named Floyd Patterson. An elimination tournament to name the new heavyweight champion may well end with light heavyweights Moore and Patterson boxing for the crown.

"Barring a complete collapse of my finances . . . the ring has seen the last of me,'' said Rocky. But Manager Al Weill was smiling far too broadly as he listened to the retiring words of his meal ticket. Was it because the scramble for Rocky's empty throne might be just the thing to revive the public's waning interest in prizefighting? Or was it more than that? Heady talk of big purses and million-dollar gates can sometimes be as moving as the pinch of poverty. There is, too, the additional challenge of the record: many an ex-champ has tried to come back, but none ever has. Rocky is unmoved now, but that does not mean he will not later be moved to try a comeback.

*Gene Tunney was outpointed as a light heavyweight by Harry Greb in 1922 before he won the championship from Dempsey.

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