Choppin' At The Bit

Allow me to introduce you to the man, whom in my opinion, is one of the greatest heavyweight boxers of all time.  His name is Rocco Francis Marchegiano  aka Rocky Marciano. He is the only heavyweight to go undefeated and untied in his professional career and was knocked down only once by the man in the picture. That man, obviously paid dearly for that, is named Jersey Joe Walcott

So why Rocky? What makes him the greatest? Why did he go undefeated and untied? Two words my friends:

Training

Determination

I'll break them down for you like this. Rocky was an avid Joe Louis fan and if you dont know Joe Louis is then I feel bad for you. Rockys mentality was, "if I train twice as hard as the champ, then I can beat the champ."

This simple mental state is was propelled him to an illustrious career in boxing. He ran twice as far as the champ, boxex twice as many rounds as him as well. He believed to be the best, you gotta train to beat the best. Rumour has it that he had a hard time keeping sparring partners.  Another one states he had a custom made 250lbs heavy bag that he would intentionally try to swing with the impact from his punches. If it wouldn't swing, he'd train harder. If it did swing, he wanted it to swing a lot or he'd train harder.

Determination, a set goal in mind to inspire and propel himself beyond his own comprehensible capability as a fighter. We all have our reasons for the hustle, his was his family.

His father worked in Brockton making shoes for a living, and it killed Rocky.  He knew he didn't want to make shoes for a living and he damn sure didn't want his father in the factory anymore. His determination to take care of his parents and get out of Brockton only fueled his training and elevated him to that championship level.

Now what can we take away from this? That it doesn't matter who you are, what you're doing, or where you came from. With determination and hard work, ANYTHING can happen. Absolutely anything. All it takes are those first few steps through all the BS, Negativity and Doubt to get to your promise land. Don't think for a second that anyone who was ever great never had a doubt before, because they have.

Rocky did after he killed a fellow Italian fighter in the ring. Almost gave up boxing, gave up the dream and almost went to work in that same factory his father worked. He didn't.  He became bigger than the situation and he continued on. He's only human, just as we are.

If he can ... if I can ... you can.

Happy Training.