Mayweather, like Marciano, a rarity

— Rarely does the boxing industry turn up an undefeated pro fighter - especially a heavyweight champion - but Rocky Marciano managed it: 49 fights, 49 victories, 43 knockouts.

On Sunday, Aug, 31, 1969, the evening before Marciano’s 46th birthday, the retired champion was preparing to fly from Chicago to Des Moines to do a favor for an Iowa friend. At 6 p.m. that Sunday, a small plane with three occupants lifted off from a Chicago airport. The pilot’s total flying time was 231 hours, with only 35 hours at night.

About 9 p.m., the plane crashed into a lone oak tree in the middle of an Iowa cornfield. All three passengers were killed.

Approximately a month earlier in Hot Springs, around the fourth of July, Marciano spent two or three days “handling” a young nightclub singer who supposedly reminded two or three music people of some old-time greats. (I never met any of those.) Marciano was in a golf game the morning I visited Hot Springs. Except for Marciano, the other players were well-known local business types.

Actually, Marciano wasn’t playing golf that day. He was walking the course, exercising. When the time came for him to take his swing, he hit the ball and resumed walking.

That summer, some boxing magazines had been hinting that Marciano was shedding weight with the intention of a comeback.

“Look,” Marciano said in Hot Springs. “I’m working off weight, but not for a comeback in the ring. You know [promoters] are trying to put together that all-time heavyweight champions tournament - from John L. Sullivan in 1890 to Muhammad Ali right now. Of course some of those old champs are dead, and most of the others wouldn’t dare get in a ring. But fans enjoy that kind of stuff.”

(A year or so after the tournament started, I got a postcard from Archie Moore: “Jim Jeffries outpointed Muhammad Ali in 15 rounds? The slowest heavyweight in history beat the fastest? Has the whole world gone crazy?”)

At Yankee Stadium in September 1955, Marciano closed his career by knocking Moore out in nine rounds.

“I knew I wasn’t going fight anymore,” Marciano said in 1969. “I couldn’t see any reason to fight the kind of guys who were left around.”

Finally on Saturday, April 28, 1956, Marciano announced his retirement.

Undefeated Floyd Mayweather Jr. (43-0, 26 K0s) plans to fight Robert Guerrero on May 4 in Las Vegas, and he’s changing cable networks to do it. After several years on HBO, he’s switching to Showtime.

Marciano’s best earnings from title bouts were $1,000,374 for his 1955 fight against Moore. Mayweather’s best earnings come from the millions upon millions of dollars he receives in pay-per-view ventures.

Sports, Pages 18 on 02/26/2013

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