40 years ago next Monday, former undefeated heavyweight champion of the world
Rocky Marciano died instantly when a private plane that he was a passenger in struck a tree near a small airfield outside Newton, Iowa.Marciano, who remains the only heavyweight champion in boxing history to retire having won every fight in his professional career with an unblemished record of 49-0, was pronounced dead on the eve of his 46th birthday. Marciano, the son of immigrants from Italy, was born and raised in Brockton, Massachusetts. “The Rock from Brockton,” who almost succumbed to a case of pneumonia when he was a toddler, is a member of the International Boxing Hall of Fame.As a fitting tribute to the fighter that Ring Magazine ranked the sixth greatest heavyweight champion ever in 1998, a bronze statue of Marciano was planned to be unveiled outside of Brockton High School’s football stadium in time for his birthday on September 1. Unfortunately, construction on the statue, a gift provided to the city of Brockton by the World Boxing Council (WBC), has been delayed because of financial difficulties and threats.WBC President Jose Sulaiman revealed that sanction fees paid to the council by boxing promoters have dropped nearly 50 percent and construction of the $300,000, 24-foot bronze statue will now not be completed until later this year, or sometime in 2010.“The statue has been started and we stopped it,” said Sulaiman this past spring. “My opinion is that the statue will be in about six months restarted, when we have enough cash.”In addition to the serious economic potholes noted, a bizarre string of e-mail threats sent from the Chicago area have also derailed work on the statue.Brockton’s Director of Community Services, Moises Rodrigues, said that the WBC has received in excess of 1,000 menacing emails from a person or group who, inexplicably, want the Rocky statue based in “The Windy City.”“The council had hit a little bump on the road from the e-mails they were getting from this psycho in Chicago,” Rodrigues said.Larry Siskind, the Brockton Historical Society President and a member of the statue committee, predicted that the warnings stem from a harmless loser. Still, he admitted that such consistent barrages of hate mail are a tad worrisome.“We’re very confident it’s just a bunch of blowhards,” said Siskind. “But, you know, they have maintained a steady stream of invectives.”More than virtually any pugilist in history, “The Brockton Blockbuster” deserves a commemoration to celebrate his unrivaled dominance in the ring.Marciano was once quoted as saying, “What could be better than walking down any street in any city and knowing you’re the heavyweight champion of the world?”Brockton warrants to be officially recognized as the city where one of the greatest heavyweight champions of all-time learned to walk, live and fight.No set of hardships or torments should permanently halt the construction of
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