Unbeaten: The Triumphs and Tragedies of Rocky Marciano

Description

Sylvester Stallone's famous Hollywood franchise borrows its name from a less famous but very real man, Rocky Marciano. T'he Brockton Blockbuster' was the only undefeated heavyweight champion in boxing history. While Marciano's 49-0 record and knockout power make him a familiar figure in the annals of sport, his story, which weaves through the mafia's golden era in America, is more complex and largely forgotten - compelling, heroic and ultimately tragic. This is the story of an incorruptible immigrant son who chased the American dream in the middle of the 20th Century, then lost it in a changing world in the 1960s. Marciano's story unfolds in the back alleys of New England and the musty gyms and Broadway lights of New York in the years after World War II, when boxing reflected the tremendous societal changes sweeping America. Marciano moved through a romantic era of guys and dolls, hustlers and gamblers, crusty trainers and sleazy managers, glamorous celebrities and notorious mobsters. Marciano's quest for perfection came at a price. The All-American boy achieved his dream only to retire from the ring while still in his prime. For the last decade of his life, he wandered America, disillusioned, untrusting, hiding his money, cheating on his wife, consorting with the mobsters he had loathed for corrupting his sport, until his death in a plane crash in 1969, the night before his forty-sixth birthday.

Mike Stanton is an associate professor of journalism at the University of Connecticut, having previously headed the investigative team at the Providence Journal, where he shared a Pulitzer Prize.

Unbeaten is one of the best sports books I've read in years. It's an irresistible story told with beautiful writing and a keen eye for detail. Like Rocky Marciano, this book hits hard and won't be easily put down -- Jonathan Eig, author of Ali: A Life In Unbeaten, Mike Stanton aims to bring the legend to life for a new generation. He delivers a meticulously researched and eminently readable account of the only heavyweight champion who exited a savage sport with a perfect professional record ? 49-0 with 43 knockouts, 26 of them in the first three rounds. . . . [He] does a deft and detailed job of recreating Marciano's journey through a violent and venal profession, with a direct style that pulls no punches. * The Boston Globe * It's an amazing story, and it was an amazing era, and it's all captured brilliantly...Stanton is so good at describing the shadowy boxing world of Providence in the late 1940s and early '50s you can almost smell the cigar smoke. For Unbeaten is far more than just a sports book, or even a biography of an iconic American sports figure. It's a book about a certain time and place, an extremely well done book about a slice of American life that too rarely gets written about. * Providence Journal * This meticulously documented and well-written work should stand for both fans and scholars as Marciano's definitive biography. * Library Journal (starred review) * Uniformly superb...Mike Stanton has told the champ's life story in greater detail and with more pleasing complexity than any previous book has done. * Open Letters Review * A satisfying biography of the iconic boxer, the only heavyweight champion to retire undefeated. . . a sturdy contribution to the literature of the sweet science, reminding readers of a bygone era of fighting. * Kirkus Reviews * This is a story that has waited a long time to be told this well, by a gifted writer and reporter like Mike Stanton. It is a story about the way things used to be in boxing, in the sport -- and the America -- that produced the myth and the reality of Rocky Marciano. Finally, at long last, the real Rocky has met his match. -- Mike Lupica * New York Daily News * Mike Stanton has done phenomenal work - where did he find so many great stories? Rocky Marciano was a legendary champion whose path to glory was so much more complicated than his undefeated record suggests. And his story transcends sports; it's a window into a changing America in the middle of the twentieth century. I was a big fan of Stanton's book on Buddy Cianci, and I'm an even bigger fan of this one. -- Nicholas Pileggi, author of Wiseguy and Casino Sitting down in the ring with Muhammad Ali to share slices of grapefruit, visiting the dying mob boss Vito Genovese in a Kansas prison -- Mike Stanton's book on Rocky Marciano teems with marvelous scenes and revealing insights into the chaotic boxing world of the unbeaten heavyweight champ. -- David Maraniss, author of When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi Take a seat in the smoky arena. (Please remove your hat.) Listen to the jabber-jabber talk around you. Make a wager, preferably on the stubby white guy from Brockton, Mass. Plug into the excitement, the jostle, the sweat and the grind, the 1950s action when boxing was important and the heavyweight champion of the world was the king of all athletes. Mike Stanton makes Rocky Marciano walk the earth again in Unbeaten and nothing is going to stand in his way. This book is wonderful. -- Leigh Montville, author of Sting Like a Bee: Muhammad Ali vs. the United States of America, 1966-1971 Mike Stanton brings back Marciano, and with him, a whole era in American social, industrial and athletic history. * David Margolick, The Wall Street Journal *