Rocky Marciano: THE ROCK OF HIS TIMES (Sport and Society) (Paperback)

~ (Author) "It was St. Patrick's Day in the year 1947, and the good, hard-working people of Holyoke, Massachusetts, had several options for their evening's entertainment..." (more)
Key Phrases: mainstream sportswriters, fight mob, heavyweight championship boxing, Rocky Marciano, New York, Joe Louis (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Sullivan, a business writer and owner of a corporate education company, offers a solid if unspectacular biography of the only undefeated heavyweight champion in history. He recounts Marciano's career from his first professional fight in 1947 through his death in a plane crash in 1969, looking at the sports hero as a symbol of both the optimism and the darker cultural currents of the 1950s. Sullivan provides a detailed and complete history of Marciano's fights, as well as some rich contextual background on the characters and atmosphere of boxing during the 1950s. Marciano, the child of Italian immigrants, who grew up in working class Brockton, Mass., was presented by the press as the ideal '50s man: a wholesome, patriotic family man with an all-American rags-to-riches story and worshipped by his fans as such. He was another Great White Hope in a sport dominated by black men, and though many 1950s sportswriters strove for a colorblind approach, it was nonetheless clear that they rooted for Rocky. The cultural analysis is the strongest part of the book; Russell's portrait of the private man (sometimes ambivalent about his family and notoriously obsessed with collecting and never spending money) is well researched and complex, but hampered by his often clunky and repetitive writing style. Though Marciano never achieved the popularity of Ali or Louis, his story offers a fascinating glimpse of boxing at midcentury and boxing buffs will be glad to have this overdue biography.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Ask the average boxing fan who were the greatest heavyweight champions, and chances are that names such as Louis, Ali, and Dempsey will quickly pop up. Some who fancy themselves historians might chime in with Jack Johnson or even John L. Sullivan. Only after these choices will most people get around to Rocky Marciano, a plodding, many said clumsy, fighter willing to take ten blows to get in the big knockout punch of his own. But Rocky had one thing over all these guys he fought 49 pro fights and never lost, retiring as champion in 1956. In this biography, Sullivan, a Boston-area business writer, examines Marciano the fighter and Marciano the person, a man who symbolized his era as much as Ali did his. Along the way, Sullivan also offers excellent portraits of Marciano's nemeses Ezzard Charles, Jersey Joe Walcott, Archie Moore, and others and gives a sense of big-time boxing in the late 1940s and early 1950s, when the sport trailed only baseball in popularity. Essential for all boxing collections. Jim Burns, Jacksonville P.L., FL
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 392 pages
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press (April 4, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0252072626
• ISBN-13: 978-0252072628
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #324,476 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The definitve biography of Rocky Marciano, September 12, 2002

By	Jack Roberts (Eugene, OR United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Rocky Marciano: The Rock of His Times (Sport and Society) (Hardcover)

This is the definitive biography of one of the great sports heroes of the twentieth century. Perhaps it took a business writer, rather than a sportswriter, to give us an objective, detailed account of this great athlete. I for one am 100% in favor of the recent trend toward serious biographies of sports figures, rather than the "rah-rah" tradition of vacuous cheerleading and legend-mongering than has too often comprised sports biographies in the past.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars He never lost a single one of his 49 heavyweight bouts, October 7, 2002

By	Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rocky Marciano: The Rock of His Times (Sport and Society) (Hardcover)

Rocky Marciano: The Rock Of His Times by biographer Russell Sullivan, is an insightful and deftly written biographical story of a legendary figure in twentieth-century boxing. The invincible Rocky Marciano, a second-generation Italian-American active in a sport dominated by African-Americans, never lost a single one of his 49 heavyweight bouts up to when he quit the ring in 1956. An in-close study of the man's life which includes his flaws as well as his virtues, Rocky Marciano: The Rock Of His Times is a thoroughly researched, accessibly written, and highly recommended addition to community library Biography and American Sports History collections, and a "must read" for anyone who ever thrilled to a Marciano heavyweight bout.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Rock of our Times?, March 28, 2008

By	P. V. de Metter "Software Entrepreneur" (Amsterdam, Netherlands) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Every boxing fan should know about The Rock, the only undefeated heavyweight champion of the world in history. So is he really better than Louis, Ali or even big ol' earbiting Mike? No one can ever tell.

What can be told is the sole story about Rocky Marciano. This book covers as much fighting, personal, social and cultural details one could ask for. After a while, some repetitive statements get boring. Sullivan also takes away some of his glamourous stats by stating in great detail how his fights were fixed with lesser opponents. I personally just think he filled the void between Louis and Ali, but nevertheless was a great champion.

You want to relive the 50's and have a good time about reading one of the world's greatest boxers of all time? This is your book.