Rocky Marciano Beating Joe Louis was Real Passing of the Torch

“Passing the torch” has become part of the sports lexicon, a euphemism for a great but aging athlete or coach ceding his or her spot on center stage to a younger, brilliantly gifted successor. But, really, how often does it happen, either literally or figuratively?

A case can be made for a hobbled Joe DiMaggio playing his final season with the New York Yankees in 1951 with a rookie named Mickey Mantle temporarily occupying right field and primed to fill the cavernous void in center field that would be created after the farewell voyage of the Yankee Clipper. The same might be said of Peyton Manning being forced out as quarterback of the Indianapolis Colts by the arrival of Andrew Luck, or the Green Bay Packers’ nudging Brett Favre toward the exit to make room for Aaron Rodgers.

In boxing, though, such orderly transitions from one era to another are relatively rare. Some might suggest that Muhammad Ali passed the torch to his onetime sparring partner, Larry Holmes, when they squared off on Oct. 2, 1980, but by then “The Greatest” was a 38-year-old shell of his former self and Holmes, 30, already was recognized as the best heavyweight in the world and making the eighth defense of the WBC title he had won on a rousing split decision over Ken Norton 2½ years earlier. Only the most deluded Ali fans could possibly have believed their idol had any chance of upsetting Holmes, who grudgingly administered the beatdown that everyone had to realize was inevitable.

But in a very real way, the Oct. 26, 1951, bout that pitted longtime former heavyweight champion Joe Louis against future titlist Rocky Marciano was the boxing equivalent of DiMaggio stepping aside for Mantle. It was, at least most of the way, a competitive fight that night in Madison Square Garden, with the 37-year-old Louis utilizing his jab and nine-inch reach advantage to win some rounds before the 28-year-old Marciano broke through in the eighth to register two knockdowns, the second of which left the “Brown Bomber”—who, incidentally, went off as a 7-5 favorite—lying on his back on the ring apron, having been knocked through the ropes by Marciano’s devastating overhand right, which he had dubbed the “Suzie Q.”

And, as was the case with Ali against Holmes 29 years later, the sight of the beloved Louis reduced from god to mere mortal had a chilling effect on his backers who believed, or at least wanted to believe, that he could dial up past glories because … well, just because. Hero worship does not generally allow for the intrusion of harsh reality.

The referee that night was Ruby Goldstein, who had toured Army bases with Louis during World War II and was a personal friend. After Louis went down the second time, Goldstein began to count, but he stopped at three when it was obvious that his semi-conscious friend, who never fought again, was finished that night, and forever.

“For many people it was a sad affair,” Goldstein said of the brutal termination of the Joe Louis era. “A great sports figure like Lou Gehrig or Babe Ruth is finished. People idolized Louis. They didn’t want to see him when he was not himself. It wasn’t easy for me. We were friends. But when you’re a referee, you’ve got to steel yourself. You’ve got to realize there are two boys in the ring, and they both are trying very hard to win the fight.”

As was the case with Holmes, who was an Ali fan and in the aftermath of that bout received hate mail having done his job so efficiently, Marciano felt a twinge of remorse at having served as the instrument of an earlier icon’s downfall. You see, the “Brockton Blockbuster” also grew up worshipping Louis. He went into the fight expecting to win and knowing he needed to win, as impressively as possible, to continue making his case as Louis’ logical successor. But he understood the remorse that Goldstein and millions of other Americans surely felt when the great man went down in a heap.

“I feel sorry for Joe,” The Rock said of the triumph that stamped him as the next really big thing in the heavyweight division. “I’m glad I won, but I feel sorry.”

In truth, the rises to prominence by Louis and Marciano could not have been more disparate, and not just because of the obvious fact that Louis was black and Marciano white. Louis, who long had been a beacon of hope to American Negroes, became a symbol of national strength and purpose when he needed less than one round to knock out Germany’s Max Schmeling in their rematch on June 22, 1938, avenging his defeat of two years earlier that was hailed by Adolf Hitler as a testament to Aryan superiority. Although Schmeling was not a member of the Nazi party and disapproved of Hitler’s ideology, Louis’ victory made him the first person of color to be widely admired by all U.S. citizens in a country still deeply divided along racial lines.

More than that, Louis, at 6-foot-2, and around 200 pounds when he was in his prime, was a classic boxer-puncher, fluid of movement and packing putaway power in both hands. To watch him in action throughout his record 25 title defenses was to observe all of boxing’s possibilities.

Marciano, on the other hand, was a short, squatty, 5-10¼ brawler who was as inelegant as an unmade bed. Even his own people—trainer Charley Goldman and manager Al Weill—understood that his two principal attributes were devastating power and a refusal to be discouraged even as he ate a fusillade of punches boring in. Ed Fitzgerald, one of the leading sports writers of that time, was unsparing in his appraisal of Marciano’s rudimentary technique.

“Rocky is not in there to outpoint anybody with an exhibition of boxing skill,” Fitzgerald wrote. “He is a primitive fighter who stalks his prey until he can belt him out with that frightening right-hand crusher. He is one of the easiest fighters in the ring to hit. You can, as with an enraged grizzly bear, slow him down and make him shake his head if you hit him hard enough to wound him, but you can’t make him back up. Slowly, relentlessly, he moves in on you. Sooner or later, he clubs you down.”

Growing up, Marciano—Weill advised him to change his birth name, Rocco Marchegiano, because it was easier to pronounce and would fit better in newspaper headlines—wanted to become a big-league baseball player more than anything. He was a catcher, and a pretty good hitter. But he was released from a Chicago Cubs tryout camp in 1947 because of—get this—a weak throwing arm, which you would not expect of a fighter whose mighty right hand was to become the stuff of legend.

Even as Marciano awkwardly but effectively fashioned a 37-0 record with 32 KOs, each victory inching him a bit higher in the ratings, Louis’ most persistent backers complained that their guy, even in a somewhat diminished state, was too experienced, too polished and still too good to be taken down by so crude an operative as the stumpy Italian destroyer.

Weill understood what needed to be done, and to procure a fight with the Brown Bomber for Marciano he made major financial concessions, agreeing to a contract in which Louis received 45 percent of the gate to just 15 percent for Marciano. It was a gamble, but one Weill and Marciano were willing to take.

Even at 37, with thinning hair, a fuller face and some thickness to his midsection—he went in at a career-high 213¾ pounds to Marciano’s 184—Louis seemingly had his share of physical advantages. He was nearly four inches taller, with a nine-inch reach advantage (76 inches to 67) and a reputation that spanned the globe. But by then he was almost running on empty, and Marciano had 10 rounds to track down and bag his prey.

With 17,241 in the house—this was a quintessential 1950s audience, predominately male, most wearing coats and ties, more than a few with unfiltered cigarettes dangling from their lower lips—Marciano proved too strong for Louis, and was leading on all three scorecards (by margins, in rounds, of 5-2, 4-2-1 and 4-3) when he ended it in Round 8. After flooring Louis with a short left hook, he quickly drove the old master to the ropes where he finished him off with a left uppercut and that sledgehammer right.

Louis credited Marciano with being a harder puncher than Schmeling, but he also understood that his time had passed. If there was to be a torch-passing, this was as good a time as any to acknowledge the natural laws of diminishing returns.

“This kid knocked me out with what? Two punches,” Louis mused. “Schmeling knocked me out with what must have been a hundred punches. But I was 22 years old then. You can take more then than later on.”

Predictably, some pundits made light of Marciano’s success.

“The Louis of 10 years ago would have felled Rocky with one punch,” opined Arthur Daley of the New York Times. “Louis losing is more important than Rocky winning.”

Washington Post sports columnist Shirley Povich agreed, writing that “(Joe) was covered with rust. For two to four rounds he went very well. If he just had a little bit more stamina, he would’ve done it.”

For his part, Marciano continued to blast his way to the top, winning four more non-title bouts, all by knockout, before wresting the championship from Jersey Joe Walcott on a 13th-round KO on Sept. 23, 1952, in Philadelphia’s Municipal Stadium. Not surprisingly, The Rock trailed on the scorecards when he found the mark with his Suzie Q.

Louis, of course, is still revered as the best or second-best of the great heavyweights, in competition with Muhammad Ali for that designation. But Marciano, who died in a crash of a small private plane in an Iowa cornfield on Aug. 31, 1969, one day before his 46th birthday, has won over new generations of fans. He can be found in the top 10 of almost every so-called expert’s list of the 10 greatest heavyweights of all time, setting the stage for similarly dimensioned sluggers such as Joe Frazier and Mike Tyson.

Earlier this year, Marciano’s name was frequently invoked again with Floyd Mayweather Jr., in what he insisted was his final bout, going for a 49th consecutive victory without a loss or a draw (he got it, against Andre Berto), which presumably would put him shoulder-to-shoulder with his stylistic opposite. If there is a difference between them, it is that there are more than a few fight fans who had tired of “Money’s” flashy but safety-first act, while Rocky’s retirement left his many admirers still thirsting for more.

As legacies go, Marciano, the ultimate knockout artist, in death proved that he was indeed capable of going the distance.

Bernard Fernandez, a five-term president of the Boxing Writers Association of America, received the Nat Fleischer Award from the BWAA in April 1999 for lifetime achievement and was inducted into the Pennsylvania Boxing Hall of Fame in 2005, as well as the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame in 2013. The New Orleans-born sports writer has worked in the industry since 1969 and pens a weekly column on the Sweet Science for Sherdog.com.