- Bill Libby, "The Story of a Champion", 1971.
Showing posts with label rocky. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rocky. Show all posts
"Marciano's gloved fists broke blood vessels and bones in LaStarza's arms and elbows. First the arms grew heavy, then they began to ache awfully, then they grew numb. As the relentless battle wore on, LaStarza found it harder and harder to raise his arms, much less jab with them or punch with them. His hands lowered, his defense dissipated, Marciano began to punish him about the head. LaStarza began to take a terrible beating."
- Bill Libby, "The Story of a Champion", 1971.
- Bill Libby, "The Story of a Champion", 1971.
March 31, 1950
"Tony Janiro laughed at the 12-5 odds against him last night as he fought former middleweight champion Rocky Graziano to a 10 round draw in MSG. In the 1st Janiro almost floored Rocky with fast lightning lefts and rights to the head. The New Yorker weathered the storm and was holding his own at the end of the round. After that it was a slambang battle for four rounds as Tony countered the former champ's round swings with dazzling left-right combinations to the head. Janiro lost his steam in the 6th and Rocky handed him a severe beating through the next three frames. In the 10th Janiro surprised with a blazing spurt that befuddled the ring rusty New Yorker." -Associated Press (April 1)
"Tony Janiro laughed at the 12-5 odds against him last night as he fought former middleweight champion Rocky Graziano to a 10 round draw in MSG. In the 1st Janiro almost floored Rocky with fast lightning lefts and rights to the head. The New Yorker weathered the storm and was holding his own at the end of the round. After that it was a slambang battle for four rounds as Tony countered the former champ's round swings with dazzling left-right combinations to the head. Janiro lost his steam in the 6th and Rocky handed him a severe beating through the next three frames. In the 10th Janiro surprised with a blazing spurt that befuddled the ring rusty New Yorker." -Associated Press (April 1)
The history of boxing turned a page in June 1948 when Rocco Marchegiano appeared in Al Weill’s office. Weill telephoned Charley Goldman and told him to set up a sparring session so they could gauge Rocco’s potential. Later that day, Marchegiano stepped into the ring at a CYO gym on 17th Street in Manhattan with a heavyweight from Florida named Wade Chancey.
Marchegiano didn’t look like a professional fighter. He was short for a heavyweight; five feet ten inches tall. His hands were huge, but he had stubby arms that would make it difficult for him to develop an effective jab.
A. J. Liebling later likened what Weill and Goldman saw to “the understander in the nine-man pyramid of a troupe of Arab acrobats. He has big calves,” Liebling wrote. “Forearms, wrists, and a neck so thick that it minimizes the span of his shoulders. He is neither tall nor heavy for a heavyweight, but gives the impression of bigness when you are close to him. His face, like his body, is craggy. Big jaw, big nose askew from punching, high cheekbones; and almost always when he is outside the ring, a pleasant asymetrical grin.”
Marchegiano was also two months shy of his twenty-fifth birthday; old for a novice fighter.
“Al and I often looked over green kids who thought they could become fighters,” Goldman reminisced years later. “I’ll eat my derby hat if I ever saw anyone cruder than Rocky. He was so awkward that we stood there and laughed. He didn’t stand right. He didn’t throw a punch right. He didn’t block right. He didn’t do anything right. Then he hit Chancey with a roundhouse right which nearly put a hole in the guy’s head, and I told Weill that maybe I could do something with him.”
“Charley Goldman,” Michael Silver later wrote, “found a block of marble and sculpted it into The Pieta.”
Marchegiano entered the ring as a professional for the second time on July 12, 1948. The site was Providence, Rhode Island; twenty-five miles from Brockton. The opponent was Harry Belzarian. Marciano won on a first-round knockout. His purse was forty dollars.
Years later, Belzarian recalled, “The first time he knocked me down, he broke my tooth. Then he knocked me down again. Then I don’t remember anything.”
Soon after, at Weill’s suggestion, Marchegiano changed his name to Rocky Marciano. But Weill wasn’t sold yet on his new fighter. He was using him to test other prospects.
On August 23, 1948, in his fifth professional fight, Marciano fought a 15-0-1 heavyweight named Eddie Ross. Rocky was the “opponent” that night. Prior to fighting Ross, Marciano had traveled from Brockton to New York to train occasionally with Goldman, but the trainer hadn’t attended his fights.
Marciano knocked Ross out at 1:03 of the first round. Seven days later, when Marciano fought Jimmy Weeks in Providence, Goldman was in his corner.
Marciano fought eleven times during the last six months of 1948, scoring eight first-round knockouts and two in the second stanza. One opponent made it into the third round.
Rather than work with the fighter at Stillman’s Gym (which was a hub of boxing commerce in New York), Goldman continued to sculpt his creation at the CYO gym on 17th Street.
Marciano had poor balance, minimal defense, and little understanding of how to throw a jab or hook. Goldman taught him how to stand properly for balance and maximum leverage on his punches. Turning Marciano’s lack of height into an advantage, he taught him to fight from a crouch, which made him harder to hit and forced opponents to lower their hands to hit him. He taught him the rudiments of defense and schooled him to go to the body.
“You got to realize,” Goldman said later, “when I took him over, he didn’t know what a body punch was. In the first ten fights I handled him, he didn’t throw a single one. Some of those early fights when he didn’t know how to fight; he won them all, but I was afraid he’d get killed.”
But Marciano had a great equalizer; his right hand. Goldman gave him just enough moves and enough of a jab to get inside and use it.
“I got a guy who’s short, stoop-shouldered, and balding with two left feet,” the trainer said. “They all look better than he does as far as the moves are concerned. But they don’t look so good on the canvas. God, how he can punch.”
(By Thomas Hauser)
Marchegiano didn’t look like a professional fighter. He was short for a heavyweight; five feet ten inches tall. His hands were huge, but he had stubby arms that would make it difficult for him to develop an effective jab.
A. J. Liebling later likened what Weill and Goldman saw to “the understander in the nine-man pyramid of a troupe of Arab acrobats. He has big calves,” Liebling wrote. “Forearms, wrists, and a neck so thick that it minimizes the span of his shoulders. He is neither tall nor heavy for a heavyweight, but gives the impression of bigness when you are close to him. His face, like his body, is craggy. Big jaw, big nose askew from punching, high cheekbones; and almost always when he is outside the ring, a pleasant asymetrical grin.”
Marchegiano was also two months shy of his twenty-fifth birthday; old for a novice fighter.
“Al and I often looked over green kids who thought they could become fighters,” Goldman reminisced years later. “I’ll eat my derby hat if I ever saw anyone cruder than Rocky. He was so awkward that we stood there and laughed. He didn’t stand right. He didn’t throw a punch right. He didn’t block right. He didn’t do anything right. Then he hit Chancey with a roundhouse right which nearly put a hole in the guy’s head, and I told Weill that maybe I could do something with him.”
“Charley Goldman,” Michael Silver later wrote, “found a block of marble and sculpted it into The Pieta.”
Marchegiano entered the ring as a professional for the second time on July 12, 1948. The site was Providence, Rhode Island; twenty-five miles from Brockton. The opponent was Harry Belzarian. Marciano won on a first-round knockout. His purse was forty dollars.
Years later, Belzarian recalled, “The first time he knocked me down, he broke my tooth. Then he knocked me down again. Then I don’t remember anything.”
Soon after, at Weill’s suggestion, Marchegiano changed his name to Rocky Marciano. But Weill wasn’t sold yet on his new fighter. He was using him to test other prospects.
On August 23, 1948, in his fifth professional fight, Marciano fought a 15-0-1 heavyweight named Eddie Ross. Rocky was the “opponent” that night. Prior to fighting Ross, Marciano had traveled from Brockton to New York to train occasionally with Goldman, but the trainer hadn’t attended his fights.
Marciano knocked Ross out at 1:03 of the first round. Seven days later, when Marciano fought Jimmy Weeks in Providence, Goldman was in his corner.
Marciano fought eleven times during the last six months of 1948, scoring eight first-round knockouts and two in the second stanza. One opponent made it into the third round.
Rather than work with the fighter at Stillman’s Gym (which was a hub of boxing commerce in New York), Goldman continued to sculpt his creation at the CYO gym on 17th Street.
Marciano had poor balance, minimal defense, and little understanding of how to throw a jab or hook. Goldman taught him how to stand properly for balance and maximum leverage on his punches. Turning Marciano’s lack of height into an advantage, he taught him to fight from a crouch, which made him harder to hit and forced opponents to lower their hands to hit him. He taught him the rudiments of defense and schooled him to go to the body.
“You got to realize,” Goldman said later, “when I took him over, he didn’t know what a body punch was. In the first ten fights I handled him, he didn’t throw a single one. Some of those early fights when he didn’t know how to fight; he won them all, but I was afraid he’d get killed.”
But Marciano had a great equalizer; his right hand. Goldman gave him just enough moves and enough of a jab to get inside and use it.
“I got a guy who’s short, stoop-shouldered, and balding with two left feet,” the trainer said. “They all look better than he does as far as the moves are concerned. But they don’t look so good on the canvas. God, how he can punch.”
(By Thomas Hauser)
The story of Harry Haft who was a survivor of a Nazi concentration camp in WW2, surviving by winning bare-knuckle fights in which the loser died during the fight or was executed. Eventually he escaped the camp and his life brought him to professional boxing and eventually meeting Rocky Marciano in the ring.
....................
"Harry Haft was born in Poland in 1925. “It was anything but good fortune to be born a Jew in Poland in 1925,” wrote his son. “Harry would think back on his birth as his first act of survival in an increasingly miserable time.”
One of eight children, Haft was sturdy and strong from the day he was born. His mother, who was so heavy she did not even know she was pregnant with him, was working over a basin when he dropped from her body, landing headfirst on the floor.
His father died when he was three years old, and from the time he was a youngster, the wide-shouldered and extremely muscular fatherless Haft had a fiery temper, which was displayed mostly against anti-Semitic youths. Early on it was obvious that if provoked, he had no qualms about finishing arguments with his massive fists.
In 1939, when he was 14 years old, Haft witnessed the German occupation of Poland. Under Nazi occupation, Haft together with his older brother ran a smuggling business.
In 1941, Haft was deported to Auschwitz because he was Jewish.
Because of his strong physical stature an SS overseer trained him to be a boxer, and had him compete at fights to the death in front of the military personnel. The fights took place at the concentration camp Jaworzno, which was situated at a coal mine north of Auschwitz. Haft fought 76 fights at this concentration camp. When the camp in Jaworzno was dissolved because of the advancing Soviet Red Army, the inmates were sent on death marches.
Having witnessed countless acts of horrific sadism, Haft made his escape. He stole the uniform and weapon of a German soldier whom he had killed with his bare hands. He then tried to pass himself off as a lost soldier to an elderly German couple who he encountered at their farmhouse. When they suspected—or he thought they suspected—that he might not be who he said he was, he feared that they would turn him into authorities. Knowing he would be tortured or killed if that occurred, Haft shot them to death without giving it a second thought.
After eventually journeying to America, via the assisstance of American liberators, Haft arrived in New York and began boxing out of desperation.
While boxing in America, Haft encountered even more problems, especially when gangsters Frankie Carbo and Blinky Palermo tried to take control of his career. He won his first twelve fights, but lost against a more experienced boxer in Westchester County Center on 5 January 1949. After this loss, his career never recovered. His final fight was against Rocky Marciano, on 18 July 1949 in Rhode Island Auditorium, in what was Marciano's 18th professional fight. Haft claimed that he was threatened by the Mafia and forced to throw the fight against Marciano.
As Haft warmed up in the dressing room, he said three men entered and threatened to kill him if he did not go down in round one. After they departed, Haft asked his manager what he should do. The manager just shrugged his shoulders and said he did not know.
Having already survived Nazi death camps, the undeterred Haft refused to go along. An article in the Providence Journal described him as “a rusher with very little style,” and said that he “landed the first good punch of the fight, a hard right to Marciano’s midsection.”
Marciano hurt Haft in the second with a right hand that sent him reeling into the ropes. Two follow-up lefts had Haft groggy at the bell.
“Two hard punches to Haft’s head—a left and a right—were Marciano’s openers in the third,” reported John Hanlon in the Journal. “At the halfway mark, Haft rallied briefly. But it was too late.”
Marciano hit Haft with a left to the gut that he followed up with his fabled right hand. Haft was finished. According to the Journal, he “received a fine reception as he left the ring.”
After his loss to Marciano, Haft retired. He married in 1949 and opened a fruit and vegetable store in Brooklyn.
In April 2007, Haft was included in the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. He died in November of the same year, aged 82.
(Wikipedia / Robert Mladinich)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUpPcz6WR28
....................
"Harry Haft was born in Poland in 1925. “It was anything but good fortune to be born a Jew in Poland in 1925,” wrote his son. “Harry would think back on his birth as his first act of survival in an increasingly miserable time.”
One of eight children, Haft was sturdy and strong from the day he was born. His mother, who was so heavy she did not even know she was pregnant with him, was working over a basin when he dropped from her body, landing headfirst on the floor.
His father died when he was three years old, and from the time he was a youngster, the wide-shouldered and extremely muscular fatherless Haft had a fiery temper, which was displayed mostly against anti-Semitic youths. Early on it was obvious that if provoked, he had no qualms about finishing arguments with his massive fists.
In 1939, when he was 14 years old, Haft witnessed the German occupation of Poland. Under Nazi occupation, Haft together with his older brother ran a smuggling business.
In 1941, Haft was deported to Auschwitz because he was Jewish.
Because of his strong physical stature an SS overseer trained him to be a boxer, and had him compete at fights to the death in front of the military personnel. The fights took place at the concentration camp Jaworzno, which was situated at a coal mine north of Auschwitz. Haft fought 76 fights at this concentration camp. When the camp in Jaworzno was dissolved because of the advancing Soviet Red Army, the inmates were sent on death marches.
Having witnessed countless acts of horrific sadism, Haft made his escape. He stole the uniform and weapon of a German soldier whom he had killed with his bare hands. He then tried to pass himself off as a lost soldier to an elderly German couple who he encountered at their farmhouse. When they suspected—or he thought they suspected—that he might not be who he said he was, he feared that they would turn him into authorities. Knowing he would be tortured or killed if that occurred, Haft shot them to death without giving it a second thought.
After eventually journeying to America, via the assisstance of American liberators, Haft arrived in New York and began boxing out of desperation.
While boxing in America, Haft encountered even more problems, especially when gangsters Frankie Carbo and Blinky Palermo tried to take control of his career. He won his first twelve fights, but lost against a more experienced boxer in Westchester County Center on 5 January 1949. After this loss, his career never recovered. His final fight was against Rocky Marciano, on 18 July 1949 in Rhode Island Auditorium, in what was Marciano's 18th professional fight. Haft claimed that he was threatened by the Mafia and forced to throw the fight against Marciano.
As Haft warmed up in the dressing room, he said three men entered and threatened to kill him if he did not go down in round one. After they departed, Haft asked his manager what he should do. The manager just shrugged his shoulders and said he did not know.
Having already survived Nazi death camps, the undeterred Haft refused to go along. An article in the Providence Journal described him as “a rusher with very little style,” and said that he “landed the first good punch of the fight, a hard right to Marciano’s midsection.”
Marciano hurt Haft in the second with a right hand that sent him reeling into the ropes. Two follow-up lefts had Haft groggy at the bell.
“Two hard punches to Haft’s head—a left and a right—were Marciano’s openers in the third,” reported John Hanlon in the Journal. “At the halfway mark, Haft rallied briefly. But it was too late.”
Marciano hit Haft with a left to the gut that he followed up with his fabled right hand. Haft was finished. According to the Journal, he “received a fine reception as he left the ring.”
After his loss to Marciano, Haft retired. He married in 1949 and opened a fruit and vegetable store in Brooklyn.
In April 2007, Haft was included in the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. He died in November of the same year, aged 82.
(Wikipedia / Robert Mladinich)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUpPcz6WR28
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