RCM Historical Boxing: Rocky Marciano and Larry Holmes – Tears Shed For Ex-Champs in Historical Context

Heavyweight champions come and heavyweight champions go. Only twice in history have heavyweight champions cried. Rocky Marciano cried after he beat up Joe Louis and knocked him out. Larry Holmes cried when he took the money and gave Muhammad Ali a horrific ten round beating in ‘The Last Hurrah’, Ali finishing the bout on his stool.

Marciano knew he would have to deal with Louis if ‘The Brown Bomber’ made a comeback. Strangely, Rocky was not looking for the bout, Louis was. Joe had major problems with back taxes owed to the internal Revenue Service and needed the money. Joe’s right hand lead was shot, so he fought Rocky with his left hand jab until he got tired.

Ali was a marvelous physical specimen for Holmes, but only tried a bit in the ninth round and that was it. The plus 100 degrees Fahrenheit heat in the desert of Las Vegas, and the onset of Parkinson’s, left Ali in trouble in a bout which should have taken place 18 months earlier if it had to be so. The fading Ali took a payday, and failed with his rope-a-dope, as Holmes fought smartly, throwing brutal body shot punches which moving side to side, and not standing in front of Ali like George Foreman did in Kinshasa, Zaire six years earlier. Holmes, Ali’s longtime sparring partner back in the day, knew the Ali of 1980, because he knew the Ali of 1974. Holmes won every round back in the gym then. Ali, a clown, would not cheat father time and fool Holmes years later. It was not to be.

Joe Louis never boxed again, but later became a professional wrestler till he got seriously hurt. Muhammad Ali lost once more, to future heavyweight champion Trevor Berbick, who was subsequently killed by a member of his family in a land dispute. Marciano versus Louis, and Holmes versus Ali, are bouts lost in time. Both Marciano and Holmes cried after the bouts, because nobody likes to beat up on a washed up old champion. Rocky got out at 49-0 before he got hurt. Holmes was not so lucky, losing to Michael Spinks twice, Evander Holyfield, Mike Tyson, Oliver McCall, and Brian Nielsen in subsequent title bouts. As for Holmes remark that Rocky couldn’t hold his jock strap, Rocky was never beaten. Holmes was. Marciano, a superior hard hitter, probably would have taken a younger Holmes out in the late rounds of a fifteen rounder which would have been close. Tyson had little trouble dispatching an older, still egotistical and careless Holmes in a style similar to Marciano.