Today's Factoid

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Tuesday, September 21, 2004
BROCKTON BOMBER DAY


Boxing fans all over the world held their collective breaths as Archie Moore, the light heavyweight champion, knocked the heavyweight champion, Rocky Marciano, to the floor on this night in 1955. But the champ got up ... just as he had done in every fight before this ... and went on to defeat Moore.
Rocky Marciano was the only world champion at any weight to have won every fight of his professional career (1947 to 1956). 43 of his 49 fights were won either by KO’s or because the fight had to be stopped.

Marciano, born Rocco Marchegiano in Brockton, Massachusetts and known as the ‘Brockton Bomber’, wanted to be a major-league baseball player. This was never to be. Instead, beating up the resident bully in Army camp, he started on the road to his famous boxing career. Marciano won 42 consecutive fights before he met Jersey Joe Walcott for the heavyweight championship on September 23, 1952. Marciano won with a KO. He retired in 1956 after defending his title six times.

The International Boxing Hall of Famer died in a plane crash in Iowa on August 31, 1969. There has never been a boxer like him. In fact, a 1969 computer simulation of a match between Marciano and Muhammad Ali lasted 13 rounds and Marciano knocked out Ali. It was truly a super fight.