When I first got interested in boxing (circa 1980), I was a huge fan of Rocky Marciano. It was easy to be that because he was the only undefeated heavyweight champ, and he was a spectacular knock out puncher.  As I went deeper into my dive into all things boxing, that fandom of Marciano went to the back burner because there was a big shift in boxing writers during that period who were reassessing his status. He went from being considered one of the best to being at best thought of as “meh”. In other words, over rated. So there were decades many people, including myself, ignored his accomplishments.

Fortunately, this has changed over the past few years. Partly with the advent of old fight footage being easily accessible to everyone online, people started to take a closer look again at the Rock. I started watching some of his fights and with the eyes of what I like to think is someone who is smarter at seeing things, and realized how amazing he truly was. Not only as a boxer, but for the lessons we can learn for real world fighting and self-defense.

For sure he hit hard, which is obviously a good thing for defending ourselves, but he had other positives as well. For one, most of his punches where incredibly tight and economical. Yes, he would at times make big looping swings, but those were on occasion. Watch the majority of his strikes. They moved in tight, explosive arcs and the impact was incredible. Every single opponent he ever fought always remarked that every time a punch from Rocky landed, it hurt. His right uppercut especially was a thing of beauty.

He was also the hardest worker in boxing. He never was out of shape.

His defense is vastly underrated. Yes, he got hit a lot, but he was also one of the shortest heavyweights ever, with really, really short arms. He had to get much closer and get through the wave of punches from taller opponents with longer reaches (he rarely had that advantage in any of his 49 fights). So of course he is going to get hit a good deal, but it is far less than people realize considering all his disadvantages. And this is a truly pertinent concept for us in a self-defense context.

I could go on and on, but instead, watch this video, and just look at some of the things I mentioned and enjoy watching a great fighter.