Jersey Joe Walcott was ahead on the scorecards when Rocky Marciano caught him with a right hand in the 13th round on September 23, 1952. That punch made Marciano heavyweight champion. Seventy-four years later, the rounds before it offer a better way to judge him than his perfect record alone.
Walcott knocked Marciano down in the first. He was the older man, but he was also the reigning champion, and his skill gave Marciano trouble deep into the fight. Marciano kept pressing until Walcott made one mistake he could punish. It took him nearly thirteen rounds to find it.
The familiar criticism is that Marciano beat aging champions. There is truth in the ages: Walcott was 38 when Marciano took his title, and Joe Louis was 37 when Marciano stopped him in 1951. Louis was past his best. Walcott’s age, though, does little to explain a fight he was winning before Marciano knocked him out. Marciano gets too much credit if every famous name on his record is treated as a prime opponent. He gets too little if the Walcott fight is dismissed by reading a birth date.
Their rematch lasted one round. Marciano’s next title defense, against Roland LaStarza, took eleven. LaStarza had pushed him to a split decision before Marciano won the championship; in their second meeting, Marciano stopped him. Ezzard Charles then took Marciano the full fifteen rounds before losing their first fight. Three months later, Charles badly cut Marciano’s nose in the rematch, but Marciano finished him in the eighth.
Marciano’s final opponent, light heavyweight champion Archie Moore, dropped him early. Marciano got up and knocked Moore out in the ninth round on September 21, 1955. He retired after that fight with six successful title defenses and a 49–0 record.
The record tells us Marciano never lost. The Walcott fight tells us something harder to capture in a number: he was hurt, behind, and still dangerous enough to change the result with one punch.
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