The tragic death of Rocky Marciano is a great loss to sports fans.
The former heavyweight boxing champion was killed in a plane crash along with the pilot and another passenger. He was en route home for a 46th birthday party.
Rocky was never my favorite boxer — fighter and mauler, yes, but not boxer. He was nicknamed the "mauler" on several occasions and his powerful shoulders backed up his burly stature in the ring.
I remember well the Billy Conn-Joe Louis fight when we sat next to the Atwaterkent and listened and cheered as the Brown Bomber put Conn away.
But I couldn't cheer when Marciano ended Louis' career and or when he ended the ring action for Jersey Joe Walcott. He didn't do it with any class, we agreed at the time . . . not like Sugar Ray Robinson whose in-and-out punches and jabs gave him many years possession of the middleweight crown. Sugar Ray later turned his fancy footwork into dancing jobs.
I've lost all interest in fights since the loose-tongued Cassius Clay quit the ring. He said and did things that disturbed many. But he was pretty foxy in the ring, fight fans had to admit.