The Sweet Science - A. J. Liebling [53]
The Wednesday piece appeared in the Newark Evening News under a headline contributed by a member of the staff who is probably an extrovert, like Rocky:
DOC PICKS ROCK
BY A KNOCKOUT
“After making a psychological study of Rocky Marciano and Ezzard Charles, and weighing all the factors involved,” Dr. Moreno said, “I pick Marciano to knock out Charles tonight in one of the middle rounds, probably the seventh or eighth. Charles, a split personality, has to fight himself as well as the champion … . Ezzard, the way I see it, has but one way to win—a slim one at best. If he can rid himself of his emotional blocks in a frenzy, if he should cut or hurt Rocky and then turn loose the ‘tiger’ of his dream personality, then he could stop Marciano. But he must knock out Marciano to win. As the rounds go by, the possibility of a wild onslaught by Charles decreases … . Psychologically, the chances for this to happen are extremely small. Rocky is positive and supremely confident. He has no fears to hold him back. He is of one piece.”
After that, the Doctor began to sound like an old A.P. sports writer. “I expect to see them both start slowly tonight,” he wrote, “with Marciano permitting Charles to meet him halfway. Charles will be cautious. He will retreat and counter. In the second or third round, Marciano, who generally warms up slowly, will suddenly take over the offensive and begin to crowd Ezzard. In the fourth and fifth, Charles may break loose once or twice in short spurts, but something will hold him back from letting loose to the fullest. Then Marciano, supremely assured and confident, will assert himself. He will move in with short, punishing blows and begin to wear Ezzard down. Rocky may knock Charles down in the seventh and finish him in the eighth round.”
Having read Dr. Moreno day by day, I felt au courant with the psychological situation when I walked over to Madison Square Garden at noon on Wednesday to see Charles and Marciano weigh in. In addition, I had acquired a pretty good notion of the somatic prospects from a piece in Sports Illustrated by Dr. Paul Peck, an anatomist, who had furnished drawings of both men stripped of their skins, like the charts in patent-medicine shows. Dr. Peck had labeled all the muscles from the zygomaticus to the gastrocnemius. (The zygomaticus is the muscle under the cheekbone; the gastrocnemius is way down in the leg.) “If the fight were held in a swimming pool, with both boxers treading water,” Dr. Peck said, “Rocky wouldn’t be able to hit very hard. Charles would.” As it was already raining when I set out for the Garden, I thought this might be worth pasting in my chart book.
The weighing-in before a heavyweight fight is completely irrelevant, since the men do not have to make any stipulated weight. It provides photographs and new leads for the afternoon newspapers, however, and has a social function. Admission is by card (police) or badge (a tin ear), giving all visiting journalists and milling coves, active or retired, a place of rendezvous where they can exchange autobiographical notes since the last fight. It also gives you a chance to see who is in town. This time, I noticed, none of the British boxing writers who had covered the June fight were present—an indication that the London editors didn’t think Charles would loose that tiger. The weighing of Marciano and Charles seemed particularly unimportant because it was plain from the weather that there would not be any fight in a New York ball park that night. Marciano weighed a hundred and eighty-six and a half and Charles a hundred and ninety-two and a half—a gain of seven pounds over his ring weight in June; with my