Rocky Marciano

I am writing about Rocky Marciano because he was one of the greatest boxers ever. He was one crazy guy, his record was 49-0-0. He even beat the one and only Muhammad Ali. Actually Rocky knocked him out in the 6th round. I wish there were still heavyweights like him around. The main boxers now are all in lighter classes, so that's why he is a hero.

For this paragraph I'm just going to have you look at a few of his fights. To be a boxer like him you can't lose and that is why he is a hero in boxing. He was a mean guy in the ring and nice on the outside.

It's sweet to think that Rocky was just a normal guy. He didn't even know he was going to be a boxer. His whole life he wanted to be a pro baseball player, but he didn't make it. He played semi pro, and once he didn't make it he had to go into the service. That's when he learned to be a boxer, was taught by a trainer in the service. The guy that taught him said that if he'd ever go pro to make him manager. Rocky went pro after he had a discharge, then didn't keep him as manager. He went to train in New York and no one thought that he was good enough to be pro because of how short he was, couldn't follow punches, and his stance was too wide, with not good form. After training he got better and better. He would never work out, just swim laps. I thought that was kind of different because usually you would just do light weight working out and run a lot. Rocky also would run sometimes 7 miles a day so that would get him the stamina that you need to be a fighter. He ran that while he was a highway laboror. So he wasn't even pro by then.

By the time Rocky became a pro, he took on a lot of the top boxers around that time. He took out Joe Louis who was a heavyweight champion a few years back. So from that Rocky earned a fight against the heavyweight champion Walcott. The fight was worth more than $500,000. It was the 13th round and Rocky was way behind in points, he knocked out Walcott with a short right to end it. There was later a rematch, where the round only lasted 145 seconds. Rocky Marciano was on the rise and everyone was looking up to him, at 38 years old. One of his final fights make over $2,000,000 with 68,000 people at the yankees stadium and millions watched it on TV. So then he was retired April 28, 1956. He was a great hero to a lot of Italian Americans, along with people nowdays who like boxing. His record was 49-0, the greatest record in boxing.

For all these reasons, Rocky Marciano is my hero. I wish I could be a knockout king like him. He beat the greatest fighters ever. He was one strong man and the greatest boxer ever, at least so far.